Dane's Games #237

Choice - Open to all players. Chris Hibbert and Kath Collman will get a reminder if they forget to submit orders for the first turn.

I intend sending out a deadline reminder a few days before the deadline. It will be sent to all subscribers irrespective of whether they have already submitted orders, indeed irrespective of whether they are playing any games.

I shall be sending out individual reminders after the deadline to those players whose orders are still missing.

You can get an automatic acknowledgement of your orders by formatting the subject appropriately (see 'Guidance for submitting orders').

It's likely that it will take me longer than usual to get the next issue out. If it takes longer than a week, I shall notify you that the issue is delayed. If you do not receive DANE'S GAMES #238 within one week of the deadline and haven't received notification of a delay, please let me know – it will probably mean that the zine got lost en route to you.

IMPORTANT: If you need to send me an e-mail to ask a question about a game report or to point out an adjudication error, make it obvious from the subject of the e-mail that it's not orders! I recommend using 'query', 'question', 'error' or some such word at the start of the subject line of the e-mail. This is necessary because I usually do not read orders until I do the adjudicating. Note that many players submit orders with subject titles similar to 'Re: Dane's Games' so I automatically assume that such e-mails are orders.

House rules for 'By Popular Demand', 'Choice' and 'Where is My Mind?' are published as part of the game-starts.

6 nimmt! – Brad Martin, David Hooton, Jim Reader, John Walker, Kevin Lee. Room for up to five more players.

Bier Börse – Derek Wilson, Kevin Lee, Steve Thomas. At least two more players required.

Bourse – At least 6 players required. Unless there's a sudden, unexpected rush to join the waiting list by next issue, this game isn't going to happen.

Choice – A new game starts this issue. It's open to all players. Chris Hibbert and Kath Collman will get a reminder if they forget to submit orders for the first turn.

Grand National - Chris Hibbert, Mike Pollard. More required, but I'm not sure how many. If there's sufficient interest, a new game will start when the current one ends, which is still quite some distance in the future. It would be helpful to know if there's going to be sufficient interest.

Nantwich Outpost – game-start this issue for Chris Hassler, Colin Harden and David Hooton.

Reduced Randomness Railway Rivals – Chris Hibbert, David Hooton, Roger Trethewey. Up to 3 more players required. The map will be chosen by the players, subject to certain restrictions to preserve what little remains of the GM's sanity. The game will not start until the current game has finished.

Where is My Mind? – Adam Huby, John Walker, Kath Collman, Richard Smith. At least 2 more players required.

Word Puzzle — Not really a game, rather a series of single-round puzzles. You can take part in as many or as few rounds as you like.

My preference is for each game's orders to be in a separate email with a subject line that concisely identifies the game.

It's a good idea to send requests to be put on waiting lists as a separate email as it's quite easy for me to overlook such requests tagged on at the end of a set of orders. Similarly with letters to the editor.

If you want to receive an automatic acknowledgement of orders, put 'ORDERS: ' (note the colon and the space!) at the start of the subject line, e.g.

I have set up a rule in my inbox assistant that will not only send an automatic acknowledgement for such emails but also put the email into a folder reserved for Dane's Games, i.e. it ensures that I find the emails when I produce the zine. Note, however, that the rule only works for some of my many email addresses, so play safe and send your orders to games*OF*dane.me.uk (where *OF* should be replaced by '@').

If you want to receive an automatic acknowledgement for other emails, put 'RDR:' (which stands for 'request delivery receipt') at the start of the subject line. I do not recommend use of this mechanism for orders, requests to be put on a waiting list, or letters for inclusion in Dane's Games: this rule in my inbox assistant does not put the emails into the folder reserved for Dane's Games, so I might accidentally misfile them manually.

Note that you'll only get the automatic acknowledgement when I next go on-line to collect my email. There are some holidays during which I do not have email access, so pay attention to what I say at the beginning of the zine about when acknowledgements won't be sent.

Early last year it occurred to me that it must be coming up to 40 years since I joined the Hobby, so I would soon have an excuse to waffle about how my gaming interests had developed over the years. Some rummaging in old paperwork revealed, however, that my first game of Diplomacy had started in 1984, so that was probably the year in which I started receiving Mad Policy (confirming this will have to wait until the second incarnation of the zine appears in the UK Zine Archive), so I deferred my waffling until this year. Then last summer, to my horror, Alex Richardson started a series of articles in Obsidian about his route into the Hobby, so I'm condemned to copy his idea rather than lead the way. As we shall eventually see, this is a consequence of a failure to take prompt action in my 20s. But that's a story for later. Today I shall be rummaging through the cobwebs of my mind to remember what games I played prior to becoming a teenager.

What was the first game I can remember playing? Was it Ludo, which we played whenever we visited my aunt and cousin in Windsor? Or was it The Merry Game of Floundering, which I played with my father? And how old was I when I started playing them? Was it before I started school? Those are questions that I certainly cannot now answer.

I remember quite a lot about the Ludo games. For example I always played red – it hadn't occurred to me until now just how far back my preference for that colour goes – and clockwise round the table the other players were my cousin (blue), Dad (presumably green), and my aunt (yellow). My cousin and I always agreed what could perhaps best be described as a non-aggression pact – early training for Diplomacy? – i.e. until one of us had three counters in the safe zone, we wouldn't deliberately knock each other's counters off. I also remember that whereas the others adopted what is probably the sensible approach, namely rushing each counter in turn round the board, I used to delight in sending a couple of counters around together so that I could form a block in random locations and witness the mayhem that then took place behind it.

It's probably no great surprise that Monopoly was one of the other board games of my childhood. It's possible that I occasionally played it multiplayer, but I can only confidently remember 2-player against Dad. Indeed most of the games I played, whether board games (Draughts) or card games (3-card Brag, Pontoon and Cribbage are the ones I remember) or even the roulette set that I had, were with him. I hope he enjoyed them as much as I did.

You might be wondering "What about games with friends?" Well, I'm sure I must have played Noughts and Crosses against my schoolfriends, and maybe also Hangman, but the only board game I can remember is Careers. It was at Glyn West's house, quite possibly just the once. But why do I remember that? Could it be that it gave me a way to live out my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut?

The only other games I remember playing against friends involved a boy who lived a couple of roads away. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe it was Nigel. I'll make do with that. He'd started coming round to the block of flats where I lived to join in whatever outdoor activity the resident kids were getting up to, and then at some stage he invited two or three of us back to his home to play board games. One of them might well have been Mine a Million – I know I played it as a kid, and I can't think of anywhere else it might have been – but one I'm certain of is Waddington's Formula 1. One day Nigel told us that he had a game that he didn't understand the rules of. When I read them, they made sense to me, so I taught him and the others. Thereafter I think it was the game we played most often.

So much for the board games. What about card games? I played Clock Patience (surely one of the most pointless exercises imaginable) and Patience on my own, and I've already mentioned a few I played against Dad. I think Cribbage was the most popular, perhaps because the other two were bland in the absence of gambling (though maybe we used the chips from my roulette set to make them less bland).

The only other card game I remember from that time is Newmarket, another staple of our visits to Windsor, and the only game I recall being played for money: 1d into the kitty and 1d into the boodle each hand. Having just read the standard rules online, I see that we were playing a variant, perhaps one that was designed to avoid the need for a second pack of cards. Instead of having four face-up boodle cards, we had a single face-down one that wasn't revealed until the hand ended. To win the boodle it was necessary to have played the card above the boodle card. I've no idea what we did if the boodle card was an ace. Maybe we treated the deuce as being above the ace even though ace is high. Or maybe the boodle couldn't be won on such a hand.

It's likely that I've forgotten some of the board and card games I played in those early years. If you also reminisce about your childhood (pre-teenage) gaming, it might prompt some of my lost memories to emerge.

The next instalment of the story will include, amongst other things, my introduction to Chess and Bridge in my teens.

As anticipated last issue I can now congratulate Alex Richardson on the 300th issue of Obsidian, but it looks like I'm going to have to wait until next issue to congratulate Neil Duncan on the same achievement with The Cunning Plan. Neither of them receive DG, however, so the congratulations will fall on deaf ears.

All the remaining games in Devolution have now ended, so after 167 issues and nearly 27 years Tony Robbins' heroic task of running a huge number of Railway Rivals and Bus Business has come to an end. It's possible, however, that he might produce one further issue to summarise all the games and provide some statistics. Quite how he ever managed to run so many RR games simultaneously is a mystery to me: I find it fiddly and time-consuming enough running just one. Unlike Alex and Neil Tony does receive DG (despite the best efforts of his ISP's spam filter), so I can take this opportunity to thank him for all the hard work over the years.

Below are details of other e-zines I am aware of. Many editors charge neither a subscription fee (except for printed copies in those instances where that is an option) nor gamestart fees, but there are some exceptions. I have noted the ones that I am aware of, but there might be others.

For those zines that I receive, I have included details of when the last issue appeared. Note that I have replaced the '@' in email addresses by '*OF*' so that there's less chance of them falling into the hands of spammers.

Runs: Diplomacy, Not-so-Intimate Diplomacy, Midnight Party, Thunder Road, Zyx/Nomic and various Word games including an SF&F By Popular Demand and a Tolkienien Press game.

For those of you with a grudge against trees here are details of some zines that I am aware of that are only available as hardcopy and for which there is of course a subscription fee, details of which are available from the editor:

Runs: Britannia, Chess, Civilization, Conquistador, Diplomacy (waiting lists not necessarily currently open for all of these though)

Editor: Robert Lesco (rlesco*OF*yahoo.com) (49 Parkside Drive, Brampton, Ontario, L6Y 2H1, Canada)

If anyone is aware of any other zines or e-zines, knows that the information above is inaccurate, or can fill in any of the gaps above, please let me know. Zine editors in particular are encouraged to provide more accurate information for their own zines: for the zines I receive I don't check to what extent their waiting lists have or have not changed.

If anyone feels like mentioning "Dane's Games" elsewhere, this is a suitable summary:

Runs: 6 nimmt!, Bier Börse, By Popular Demand, Choice, Outpost, Reduced Randomness Railway Rivals, Where in the World is Kendo Nagasaki?, Where is My Mind?

Letters should preferably be sent in separate emails with a subject title such as 'Letter' so that I know that the contents are for publication rather than addressed solely to me (I usually treat comments about unfinished games as being addressed solely to me unless they are of a very general nature or referring to things that have already happened, but I tend to assume that the contents of other emails are fair game as letters, so if you most definitely don't want something published, identify it as 'not for publication').

[Me] It's always worth taking such a chance, though if I'm trying to turn the zine round quickly, such a letter might well get held over.

[Michael Pargman] Your waffle about Christmas and travel was very interesting.

I can understand your feelings about the holiday season. I have usually celebrated with my brother and his family. But over the years they have been away every second or third year, and these years I have basically done nothing on Christmas. From Boxing Day people are more willing to come to play games and I usually try to invite for 3-5 18xx game days over the holiday period. I have never felt the urge to travel alone somewhere over the holidays. But I have very often worked and tried to move over as many vacation days as possible to the next year. Now, when I retired I had planned to use all my vacation days in August and September. But in the end there was too much to do to make a clean exit, so I had 22 vacation days paid out as cash - and received almost 1.5 month's extra pay.

[Me] Two of my three jobs came to an end while I was on holiday because I was using up my remaining leave. At the end of January 2000 I was in Gran Canaria when I effectively retired (I did two or three weeks of work during the next year or so), while at the end of April 1999 I was in Majorca when my redundancy took effect on my birthday.

[Michael Pargman] I wasn't aware of the implication of Brexit with travel days. I assume this means that the same applies if I go to Britain. Not sure if this will ever affect me, but I have always had a dream of going to Britain and/or USA for a longer time to visit game conventions. Now, this might never be realized, especially with the Swedish currency losing value and with the rise of the travelling cost of living.

I just booked hotels in Edinburgh and Glasgow for the science fiction worldcon in August and it was pretty expensive. The plan is to rent a car after the convention and see more of Scotland for another week.

[Me] The UK rule for visitors from the EU is that they can visit for up to 180 days, but can't use repeated visits to become effectively resident here. We evidently don't want to make the rule too understandable, so we don't clarify exactly what the qualification means. Given that anyone spending at least 183 days in a tax year in the UK becomes liable to be treated as a resident and to have their income taxed, I suspect that in effect we have something approximating to a '182 days in any tax year but no more than 180 at a time' rule.

I wish the rule for the Schengen area were 180 days in any year rather than 90 in any 180. That would solve my problem, though it turns out that I've succeeded in limiting the trip to Gran Canaria to four weeks next winter, so I'll be able to go cross-country skiing in Austria and Italy for the first time since 2020. In a few days I shall investigate booking the flights. Then I can spend the next 11 months wondering if there'll be enough (or indeed any) snow.

[Jim Reader] COVID update - we did finally get our boosters in early January. No problems other than a sore arm. Quite a few people we know have caught it recently, so it's definitely still around.

[Me] Apparently (I've not been paying as much attention of late as previously) there has been a new variant, JN.1, that caused a spike in cases in some countries including the US. Initially there were claims that it was more severe than previous Omicron variants, but now there's a suspicion that it's less severe. I suspect that's a good indication of how difficult it now is to determine a variant's severity, at least initially, when it's difficult to assess just how much immunity to serious outcomes the population as a whole has as a result of vaccinations and previous infections.

I've now added a pneumococcal vaccination to my collection. Shortly before I went to Gran Canaria, and again while I was out there, I receive a text message from my GP surgery inviting me to click on a link to make an appointment for one. I hoped there would be a third invitation after I got back, but after a couple of weeks it became evident that instead I'd have to contact them to make an appointment. At the vaccination I was warned that my arm might hurt and I might have a fever for a while. Twelve hours later I was of the opinion that neither side effect had occurred, though I had felt unusually tired in the afternoon, but when I went to bed and rolled over onto my side, I discovered that although it hadn't been hurting, the arm was in fact tender. Four days later that is still the case. I wonder what it is about this polysaccharide vaccine that has caused such a lenghthy reaction.

[Tom Howell] I keep reading that the older we get, the more likely we are to fall, and with worse results. Conclusion: I recommend against falling. I also recommend not walking under (or in front of moving) buses, especially when some idiot phone suggests doing so.

[Me] It's certainly been my experience that I don't bounce as well as I used to.

[Tom Howell] As for your hand, I suspect the cracked bone option. Back when I was clearing the house site, I was using a hand cranked winch that I'd borrowed from a neighbor to move some of the logs up the hillside. When the tension got too high, the crank slipped out of my grasp, took a full 360degree turn and whacked the metacarpal bone of the thumb in my left hand. Crack! I was sure it was broken. However, when I manipulated it, there was no pain. I thought I must have been mistaken about it's having broken. As it turned out, I wasn't mistaken: about two weeks later I noticed a callus where the handle had hit the bone. Obviously healing, therefore obviously had been broken.

[Me] Yes, I'm now convinced it was a cracked bone. The twinging pretty much stopped after about five weeks, which is within the 4-6 weeks I expect a bone t to take to put itself back together if allowed to get on with the job unmolested. Just occasionally the hand still twinged if a substantial force was applied to it in just the right (or do I mean wrong?) way, which could perhaps be because the bone hadn't been entirely unmolested while it was reassembling itself. Even that now seems to have stopped.

[Bob Pitman] So far this month has been good for foot and bug recovery but awful on nearly every other score. I am planning to get myself somewhere solitary for a test run tomorrow, I feel I need to find some alone time, last week we spent time between 2 hospitals after my wife got ill (thankfully now sorted) and we wound up with 8+ hours spent between various A&E departments locally.

[Me] Sounds unpleasant. A tour of local A&E departments is unlikely to be high on anyone's bucket list.

[Bob Pitman] This week our cat became very ill quite quickly and the vet told us what we already knew in our hearts. She came to us as a rescued cat 10 years ago, we looked after her and she us over that time and we knew she was 20 years old, end of 2022 she survived the removal of a large cancerous tumour on a teat and a few years ago she started on kidney medication as she suffered a failure that took much of her eyesight. She’d been on the medication for the last 5 years and managed the sight loss really well, but we think the kidneys finally gave up on Friday night and there was no road back from it for her. We already miss her through the absences from the places she favoured and the little sounds of claws on wood floor and collar tapping on food and water bowls. But she got an extra 10 years that looked unlikely when she was looking for a new home.

[Me] You have my sympathy. Some people have trouble understanding why pet owners get so upset by the loss of their companions, though sometimes that attitude is confined to pets other than cats and dogs. I have no such trouble. When I was young we had a budgie for about 12 years, a very good age for a budgie. It was very upsetting when 'she' (actually it was a male, but we'd been told that it was a female, so he was a boy named Sue) died. That's one reason, the other being my lifestyle, why I've never had a pet as an adult, though that's not protected me on the deaths of friends' or relatives' cats and dogs that I've been particularly fond of.

My friends in the Forest of Dean always get rescued cats. They usually opt for older ones that might otherwise struggle to be rehomed, so they have had a lot of experience of cats with kidney failure.

[Steve Jones, commenting on the last issue] It appeared in the spam folder of my laptop (under Windows 10), but in the inbox of my PC (under Windows 11) – go figure!

[Me] One could perhaps speculate that the spam filter had been improved between Windows 10 and Windows 11 such that it was less likely to identify a harmless email as spam. Given, however, that we are discussing a Microsoft product, I can understand why the possibility of improvement from one version to the next seemed not to have occurred to you.

More seriously, it's possible that the spam filter uses heuristics developed from what you have in the past told it was and was not spam – that's the way Thunderbird for example works – in which case the difference in behaviour could be a consequence of differences in what you've told it on the two computers. Thunderbird on my PC is more likely than Thunderbird on my laptop to get spam classification correct simply because the former has been used much more than the latter, so has been more frequently told by me what is and isn't spam.

[Tom Howell] I used to think myself somewhat observant... I had to re-read Rob Thomasson's comment three times before I spotted the typo permitting your silly comment. I'll have to tell my old brain to quit predicting the next word when it recognizes the first of what normally would be two that always occur together. Me to brain: "That should be ALMOST always; make no substitutions!"

[Me] On the other hand I should perhaps be less dismissive of what my brain tells me. Last issue Chris Hibbert's letter was missing from the letter column until I realised that I'd read it but not replied, so I copied his email into the letter column. At the time I thought there was an email from Michael Pargman that had suffered the same fate, but I could find no trace of his email, so came to the (entirely plausible) conclusion that I was going bonkers. Needless to say, I found the email the day after sending out the zine…

[Michael Pargman] I agree about people not understanding how lift buttons work.

At my workplace we had the next level of lifts, where you have to push the number of the floor you want to go and then step into the lift that will take you there. Inside the lift there are only buttons to open and close the doors. A lot of people just step into a lift when the doors open and then get really confused when there are no floor buttons.

What makes it even more complicated is that there are four lifts, two and two opposite each other. They are named A, B, C and D. So when you get to the lift area, and you want to go to floor 4, you push button #4 and then wait to see what lift will take you there.

1) People go push their floor number, but then immediately turn back to their phones, so they don't observe which lift they should take. When a lift arrives, they walk in and then there is a 25% chance that they are in a lift that will stop at their floor.

2) People come to the lift area talking with someone, or they find a colleague that they start talking to. They never push any button and when a lift comes they walk in. It might take the whole ride until they realize that it never stopped on their floor.

[Me, on 25/01] At first I wondered why the lift service would be organised this way, but then I realised that it makes it possible to optimise which floors each lift stops at. For example if lift A is going upwards with stops on floors 4 and 7, while lift B is going up with stops on floors 4 and 6, it means that someone on floor 4 who wants to go to floor 6 is forced to wait for lift B instead of slowing down lift A's progress. This would be particularly useful in a tall building. How many floors are there in your building?

[Michael Pargman] Our building is only 7 to 9 floors high, and yes they said it would make them more efficient. But it didn't seem so. Sometimes you stood there waiting while you could here lifts swooshing by. And it was quite strange when you were going for lunch with your friends and some would go to the restaurant on the ground floor and some to the first floor and the office kitchen and you wouldn't be able to go in the same lift.

[Me, on 27/01] Coincidentally there was a programme about lifts on BBC yesterday evening, as a result of which I now know that the traditional way in which lifts operate is called Directional Floor Sequencing while the method at your former workplace is called Destination Control. It's been around since 1992 and apparently reduces journey times by up to 30%.

The programme will also enable me to make an apparently knowledgeable reply later to a letter from Jim Reader.

[Chris Dawe, on 27/01] Today I found "The Secret Genius of Modern Life", a series on BBC2. The first I heard about it was today and I have just watched this morning's episode (Series 2 number 6 - I did not find this early enough). This episode is available on the BBC iPlayer (01:35am this 27-Jan-2024). It's about lifts. Much is about development, safely, etc but towards the end is a section about Dane's adventures with Spanish lifts, with thanks to Dr Gina Barney, Hon FCBISE.

[Me, on 27/01] I had recorded it and watched it earlier this afternoon. How dare the BBC steal DG's subject matter!

At least your letter means that I can now credit Dr Gina Barney with inventing Destination Control. I'd failed to notice her surname during the programme.

Although I watched most of the first series of "The Secret Genius of Modern Life", I only watched those episodes in the second series that were on subjects of interest. The one on lifts was of course top of the list. Or do I mean highest on my list?

[David Norman] I suspect I won't be the first person to point it out. But I see Steve managed to confuse you by using "top" to mean "highest".

I should have been able to deduce the correct meaning by paying proper attention to the punctuation. He wrote "Suppose you're a lift, and you arrive from below to the top floor to which there is an unsatisfied request…". The absence of a comma makes it a defining clause. I effectively read it as "Suppose you're a lift, and you arrive from below to the top floor, to which there is an unsatisfied request…" where the presence of the comma makes the clause merely descriptive.

I suppose I'd better repeat his contribution and make an appropriate reply rather than the inappropriate one I made last issue.

[Steve Thomas, last issue] Suppose you're a lift, and you arrive from below to the top floor to which there is an unsatisfied request, either upwards or downwards. There is an unsatisfied downwards request at that floor, too. What should you do? I submit that the correct thing to do is stop, in some order change all the direction indicators to downwards and open the doors, wait a few seconds, close the doors, and head downwards. You describe a system that stops, opens the doors, waits a few seconds, closes the doors, in some order changes all the direction indicators to downwards and opens the doors, waits a few seconds, closes the doors, and heads downwards. Programming the lift correctly both saves time and corresponds more closely to what most people expect.

[Me] Consider this scenario. Someone has had an early breakfast and returned to their room on the fourth floor of the Hotel Magec. Now they want to go to the swimming pool, which is on the eighth floor. They go to the lift and press the up button. Subsequently someone else appears and presses the down button. An empty lift arrives. Unfortunately it's been programmed by you, so rather than servicing the first request, it declares that it's going down. The disappointed swimmer awaits the next lift, but before it arrives, someone else turns up and presses the down button. Repeat, potentially ad infinitum, though it's likely that before the heat death of the universe either there will be an unsatisfied request from a higher floor or no one else will request a lift down from the fourth floor. It's also possible that it will occur to the increasingly frustrated swimmer that they can overcome the biased programming by getting in a downbound lift and pressing the button for the eighth floor so that they'll get taken there after the diversion to the ground floor occasioned by the queue jumper.

Directional Floor Sequencing really does have to assume that people are telling the truth about the direction they want to go. It's the people, not the lifts, that need reprogramming. That would also avoid ascending lifts having to stop unnecessarily at intermediate floors for false up requests.

[Jim Reader, last issue] I also have a bad habit of not checking the floor when I get out so a couple of times in Brazil (and Vegas) waiting again for a lift on the wrong floor.

[Me, last issue] But did you suffer the embarrassment of anyone seeing you do so?

[Jim Reader] I don't think anyone caught me, but I can't remember for sure. I nearly did the same in Detroit last week, but was saved by someone else who had made the same mistake entering the lift. Maybe the solution to the lift problem is to go back to the Paternoster model. According to Wikipedia, there are still a couple of functioning Paternosters in England, both on University campuses (Essex and Sheffield). I have only ever used such a lift in Budapest and enjoyed the experience, despite my initial trepidation.

[Me] I wonder if I can find an excuse to visit the University of Sheffield or the University of Essex. Of course one problem with paternoster lifts is that they have to move slowly, so travel time in a tall building is lengthy.

Something vaguely akin to a paternoster lift, in as much at it can have multiple cabins in the same shaft, might be on the horizon. Lift companies are experimenting with maglev lifts, i.e. lifts moved not by cables but by magnetic levitation. The cabins in such lifts wouldn't be limited to vertical movement, so in the simplest arrangement a series of cabins could go up on one side of a shaft, go sideways at the top (or indeed anywhere else), and then go down on the other side. In a more complicated arrangement there could be horizontal shafts linked to the vertical ones, thereby allowing people to do things like board on the ground floor at the front of the building and request to be taken to the rear of the 50th floor. When I heard about this, I immediately thought of the turbolifts in Star Trek, which prompted me to discover this video, which reassured me that there is at least one person in the world more nerdy than me.

Some things make me doubt that maglev lifts are really as wonderful an idea as suggested. The BBC programme explained how the use of a counterweight in a traditional lift drastically reduces the energy required to move the cabin. The counterweight and the cabin are on opposite ends of a cable that runs over a wheel at the top of the shaft, so the motor only has to raise the difference in weight between the counterweight and the cabin and its contents (that's an oversimplification: there's also the difference in weight between the two runs of cable). A maglev lift wouldn't have counterweights, so surely the energy requirement to raise the cabin would be much greater. I might, however, be overlooking something. For example maybe regenerative braking could get energy from the descending cabins.

The BBC programme also explained how the emergency brake on a lift works. It was very impressive, but it's triggered by the tension in the cable disappearing, so some other trigger would be needed in a maglev lift. Also it takes some distance to stop a falling cabin. If there were multiple cabins in a maglev lift shaft, they would have to be kept at least as far apart as the distance it takes for the emergency brake to work in a worst-case scenario. That probably reduces the utility of maglev lifts in low buildings, but I think they're mainly aimed at tall buildings anyway, especially those that are so tall that a traditional lift cannot run the full height because the cable becomes excessively heavy.

My greatest reservation, however, is "What happens when there's a power failure?"

[Kath Collman] Ah - a further improvement in the zine : the illustrated lift story!!! Should be enough to get you a win in next year's zine poll 😅 or at least a Rusty Bolt if only those were still going....

[Kath Collman] I thought you might enjoy an escalator story for a change. Yesterday I was meeting a friend in Waterstone's for a coffee and catch-up, and as the buses were miraculously co-operating with my needs for once, I arrived in the city centre with quite a bit of time to spare. As I am currently in need of a new saucepan, I decided to pop into TKMaxx to see what they had available. It's not a shop I visit frequently, for various reasons, but it was close by so I thought I'd give it a try. Ascertaining that the department I wanted was on the 1st floor, I headed for the escalator only to find that it was stationary, as one of the 2 escalators was closed for maintenance. There was a security man at the foot of the escalator that wasn't sealed off, so I asked him if it was OK for me to simply walk up. "Oh no", he said, "This is the DOWN escalator, you can't walk UP it! Me: "Err, but it's stationary and there's no one else on it". "Sorry Madam you'll have to use the lift or the stairs, over there (gesticulating in no particular direction). I looked around and could find no obvious evidence of a staircase so reluctantly wandered over to the lift. There was just one button, marked "up". Sensible. So I pressed the button, which lit up for a couple of microseconds, then went out again, I waited a short time and pressed again. Again it lit up for a few microseconds and went out. As I couldn't hear any evidence of the lift moving down towards me (or even opening its doors if it was on the same floor as me). I gave it up as a bad job and left the shop. Why is life never simple?

[Me] I also wonder why they didn't have the one functional escalator going up rather than down, though maybe for cost reasons it wasn't designed to be reversible.

Years of experience has accustomed my body to correct for my foot being pulled forward when I step onto a moving escalator. When I approach a stationary one, no matter how much I concentrate on the knowledge that no such correction is going to be necessary this time, by body automatically does it. Consequently I'm always thrown slightly off balance when stepping onto a stationary escalator.

[Me] I hope this issue hasn't proved an overdose. There seems to have been rather a lot.

[Richard Smith] However, it did remind me of work 30 years ago and a chap who suffered from relentless flatulence. So much so that he had a sign saying "sorry I farted" over his desk and nobody would go in the lift with him. Instead they would suddenly decide that they needed to take the stairs to get some exercise.

This would be a silly argument in favour of home working. Nevertheless, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Alan Sugar are completely wrong. In my experience, remote working in the Civil Service has been a roaring success, and forced attendance is a massive own goal. Offices have been downsized saving the taxpayer billions, but enough office space exists for those who need to or prefer to, to attend. Video meetings are now the norm and they are cheap and convenient, with packages like MS Teams having many advanced features. Travel costs and carbon emissions have been slashed. Extremely uncompetitive salaries become acceptable with a home working option, keeping bums on seats without big pay rises or expensive contractors. Nationwide recruitment is now possible with no need for proximity to an office. But people hired on this premise are now being told they have to commute hundreds of miles 3 days a week or be sacked. When they do commute to the office, they don headphones and join Teams calls they could have made from home. A phrase used by James Cleverly comes to mind...

[Me] Some people do seem to have the strange notion that being present at work is more significant than actually doing work.

[Steve Thomas] One effect of the Americans' fondness for pronouncing "oregano" the way they do is that

About 40 years ago, my then place of work installed a drinks machine. It worked by pouring hot or chilled water into a plastic cup with pre-loaded powders, in theory producing fluids somewhat resembling hot tea, coffee, or chocolate, or chilled orange or lemon squash. Unfortunately, it had a bug, inasmuch as the delivered water was always at the temperature of the previous request. Hot orange or lemon were perfectly fine, and chilled tea had a small following, but chilled hot chocolate was to nobody's taste.

[Me] I can understand that, though a thoroughly chilled hot chocolate complete with a dollop of ice cream (much like iced coffee) might work.

[Jim Reader] As for drinks machines, I remember the (free) coffee machines we had in our office in Utrecht. The lab was downstairs and the two machines on either side of the large central staircase on the first floor. The machine to the right served regular coffee (with caffeine) and it was so brutal, we likened it to being woken up by ripping your tongue out and slapping yourself round the face with it. The machine to the left served excellent, decaffeinated coffee, so most people had to use both machines to get a drinkable coffee with caffeine.

[Me] Was the machine to the right made in Finland by any chance? I quickly learnt never to have a coffee at the hotel I stayed in for my cross-country skiing.

[Me, last issue] In the UK we prefer to build our high-speed lines from somewhere no one's likely to want to start from (Old Oak Common) to somewhere no one in their right mind would want to go to (Birmingham – sorry, Kath) as expensively as possible and then cancel the much less expensive extensions that would make the whole thing worthwhile by freeing up capacity on the existing rail routes.

[Chris Hibbert] Is that where California learned of this cockamamie plan? In 2008, California voters passed a ballot resolution to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles (about 400 Miles) for about $10 Billion. So far, they've built a non-operational 170 mile segment from Merced to Bakersfield (your Old Oak Common and Birmingham) and spent more than $20 B. The entire project is currently estimated at more than $130 Billion.

The hard part of the project is a range of small mountains south of the San Francisco area and a bigger range north of greater Los Angeles. They haven't even settled on a plan or route for getting through the mountains, and it seems likely that whatever they choose, the environmentalists will ensure that construction costs balloon even further.

My guess is that we'll spend at least $100 Billion, and there will never be a train that connects two cities of over half a million population each.

[Me] I think closer examination of the timing of the two projects might be necessary to determine who's copying whom.

There is abundant evidence of a two-way stream of bad ideas. For example we were the first to think of having a bozo politician with extraordinary hair (actually we had two), but when you guys not only copied us but made him your leader, we copied you, though if we'd wanted to make it a truly awful idea, we should perhaps have opted for Michael Fabricant.

[Steve Thomas] Your comment omits the whole raison d'etre of HS2. It's not to get people to Birmingham with greater efficiency than is available currently. It's to get people away from there. Old Oak Common (which, for the benefit of more far-flung readers, is a lot less rural than it sounds) is not, admittedly, much of an improvement, but it is served by several railway lines. A few years ago the Welsh Tourist Board tried to promote Port Talbot as a centre for tourism, on the grounds that, while it was, and is, something of a hell-hole, many genuine tourist attractions can be found a relatively short distance away. This sort of out-of-the-box thinking could do wonders for Old Oak Common.

[Ian D Wilson] Once again, you have been disparaging about Birmingham - you describe it as "particularly remote from civilisation".

[Ian D Wilson] If we take 'civilisation' in the literal sense - a society made up of cities - then clearly Birmingham is a city (however you choose to define 'city'). But if we take the more normal definition - a more advanced culture - then you do have a point: Birmingham is almost entirely drab and/or ugly. Some years ago, I had some time to kill whilst in central Brum, so I decided to sample the delights of the Museum and Art Gallery. Most of the paintings were drab and/or ugly, except for a pair of Canaletto's depicting Warwick Castle. Warwick Castle is not in Birmingham (obviously), although they used to be in the same county.

Those who think Birmingham is really awful, however, clearly haven't been to Bradford or Oldham.

[Steve Thomas] "Eastbourne may be God's waiting room, but after they've died they move to Bexhill." Ian D Wilson used to live in Bexhill.

[Ian D Wilson] As for Bexhill - I spent 18 months there quite a while ago. One of it's main "claims to fame" is that William the Conk burnt the place to the ground in 1066. The place didn't seem to have improved much since then.

[Me] So William had the right idea about Bexhill in much the same way that the Martians had the right idea about Woking?

[Kath Collman] I had been intending to treat your Birmingham-phobic comments with the contempt they deserve until I realised your true predicament, being forced to live in an undesirable part of our green and pleasant land. So you actually deserve our sympathy for having to live in the sarf-east. I stand corrected. You are merely jealous.

[Jim Reader] We've had two snow storms and sub-zero temperatures all week. The high in Detroit was - 13 for my short visit. I've heard it's been pretty grim in England - have you been affected much?

[Me] Fortunately I missed most of it by being in Gran Canaria (at one stage I seemed to be getting almost daily Yellow Warnings from the Met Office about weather in London and the South East), but in the six days after I got back we had two storms. The second wasn't too bad here in Surrey, but the previous one had been so noisy that it was difficult getting to sleep.

[Nick Kinzett] I note I didn't get around to a mild defence of the "Olympic" alternative for the Zine Poll, which though not without problems isn't quite as ridiculous as you presented it, or at least not for the specific criticism you gave. For starters the number of votes per zine is sufficiently low that the same would-be criticism (radical shift of places due to a single change of mind) could apply to any method whatsoever.

[Me] Back in DG 184 I investigated what the effect of adding a manipulative voter (someone who ranked one zine preferred to all the others ranked equally) to the votes that had actually been cast. The extra set had a dramatic effect on the results produced by the preference matrix method that Alex was using at the time but relatively little effect on the results produced by the one that I was then suggesting.

Alex's result was: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q.

With the extra vote: H, A, B, D, C, E, F, K, G, J, M, I, L, Q, N, O, P.

My result was: B, A, C, D, E, H, K, F, G, Q, J, M, N, I, L, O, P.

With the extra vote: B, A, C, H, D, E, K, F, G, Q, J, M, N, I, L, O, P.

David Norman had also suggested a method that proved fairly stable when the manipulative voter's votes were added, so it's clear that even with relatively few votes being cast for each zine, it is eminently possible to come up with methods whose results change only gradually as extra sets of votes, even extreme ones, are added.

I've now managed to derive the equation needed for calculating the points split between two zines in the method based on statistics that I suggested after the latest Zine Poll. Alas it involves summations, but I already have a straightforward spreadsheet that copes with up to 100 voters (extending it to more would be trivial). Later this year I shall write a program to process the latest Zine Poll's preference matrix to see what result my method would have given for that part of the Zine Poll. Once I've done that, I shall test how stable the method is with the addition of a manipulative voter. I'n hopeful it will prove reasonably stable, though probably not so much so as the method I advocated back in DG 184, but maybe I'll be surprised, one way or the other.

[Nick Kinzett] The real difficulty here is the perception that the Zine Poll places actually mean anything, which of course they don't and never have -- come, you must have hearkened to SOME of my ongoing demolition of Places Syndrome over the years! The most recent Zine Poll, by whatever method, merely reinforces my eternal point -- notional ordinal places are meaningless anyway (e.g you can have a bad 'second' or a good 'last') but are even more useless when quantifier differences are so marginal. Just as is the case (when present at all) in any game worthy of the name.

So the best we can do for the Zine Poll (even considered as a game) -- outside of and conceding the justice of the winner to be considered the year's most popular zine -- is some sort of cluster analysis. Exactly as I've done on a number of occasions, dating right back to when one of my zines notionally finished "second" on a couple of occasions in days of Yore. By that standard ("near miss" along with a few others, actually one wasn't that near at all) I'm just happy that my current effort has at last arguably qualified for what I've termed "interesting cases". As opposed to the mere "also ran" it's been throughout its former incarnation...

Anyway, I'll be cheerfully reiterating much the same to Alex (he's already resignedly aware of most of it), if only to reassure him that the real use of the Zine Poll carries on. Which, similarly to your laudable directory every issue, is as a Hobby Awareness exercise. When gamers are aware of game services, so those game services may have their existence justified and all the rest of it.

[Me] But even a cluster analysis needs the results to be arranged in an appropriate order. I see that in DG 184 I effectively did a cluster analysis by examining how pairs of zines had compared.

Before going further, I'll pose a question for you to be thinking about. If 20 people have produced the following preference lists of four items, which is the most popular?

A A A A A A A A B B B B B B B C C C C C

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

C C C C C C C C A A A A A A A B B B B B

B B B B B B B B C C C C C C C A A A A A

There are many instances of 'most popular' or 'best' being used to mean 'appearing at the top of the list of the largest number of people': Channel 5 has produced a vast number of such programmes. They all potentially suffer from the problem of vote splitting. A choice between two soaps and a sitcom might well give a different result to a choice between two comedies and a soap. Similarly a choice between several Dip zines and a single 18xx zine is likely to give a different result to a choice between several 18xx zines and a single Dip zine (or substitute 'chat-oriented' and 'games-oriented' for 'Dip' and '18xx' respectively).

Last year I saw a suggestion that the way to do well in the Eurovision Song Contest was to have an entry unlike any other. Well, it probably needs to be a decent entry too, but I can see the point that was being made: if your entry is just one of several decent songs of a particular genre, people that like that genre will split their votes between those songs, while if your entry is the only decent song in a genre, it will get the votes of everyone that likes that genre.

I suspect vote splitting is also responsible for what Terry Wogan used to refer to, quite inappropriately, as political voting, namely the way in which country X always gives a good score to country Y, no matter how dire the song is. People living in country Y can't vote for it, but country Y's ex-pats living in country X can. If they're voting en bloc for their home country's entry while the votes of everyone else in country X are split between the various songs they like most, it's no wonder that Y appears higher up X's list than would seem reasonable.

Did you come up with an answer to my question? You certainly shouldn't have done so. I didn't specify where the boundary between liking and disliking occurred, which would be an important consideration if, for example, you were a company wanting to produce just one flavour of something. If only the first item on each list is liked, the remaining three items merely being ordered by increasing dislike, then it's eminently sensible to say that item A is the most popular. If on the other hand the first two items on each list are liked, it would surely be more sensible to consider item D to be the most popular.

[Nick Kinzett] I also didn't get around to capping Steve T and his amusing would-be dismissal of Hoyle/Wickramasinghe as "one step above crank", well at least he concedes it's (at least) a step, small mercies. Just to reassure you (and Steve), I do not conduct my existence in the burning belief that such folk as H/W are 'right' (or rather, largely right). But I'm interested in, even impressed by, much of their reasoning and some of their evidence as presented in their later much-refined joint writings. Though even this was and remains more by contrast to the shortcomings of orthodox theory, of which many even educated people aren't sufficiently aware – partly because the complexities (especially the mathematical ones) lie outside their fields, partly because the issue has been corrupted by philosophical considerations. To give you an example of the latter, one fellow-hobbyist who fancies himself a die-hard atheist got awfully offended when I characterized the theory of the Big Bang as consistent with the God Hypothesis. He then compounded his ire, if not error, by then assuming I must be a closet devotee of the one he didn't like, whereas in fact I was pointing out that it was a possible weakness in both. (It wasn't Alan, incidentally.)

[Me] The date for the origin of life on Earth seems to be getting pushed ever further back. Although 3.5 billion years is a widely accepted date for the first conclusive evidence of life, some recent research (cf the 27/01/24 edition of New Scientist) indicates that by 3.4 billion years ago the variety of microorganisms was sufficiently diverse to suggest that there must have been life for hundreds of millions of years by then. You will presumably feel that this reinforces the idea that the Earth must have been seeded from elsewhere.

Part of the problem in estimating how quickly life could evolve from chemistry is deciding what constitutes life, e.g. do viruses count? It turns out that there are entities even simpler than viruses. Viroids were discovered in the 1970s. Even simpler and smaller are 'obelisks', discovered only last year (cf the 03/02/24 edition of New Scientist). Viruses and viroids hijack a host to replicate themselves, something that's assumed to be the case for obelisks too. As such they can't be the first step in the evolution of life, but they could be the relics of an initial 'RNA World', in which case the first organic thing capable of replicating itself might prove to have been a lot simpler than we currently imagine.

[Nick Kinzett] Appropriately, and speaking of having heretical thoughts (as I was, probably twice over)... I'm over at Lorraine's (unlike me she has a TV) and have just caught a repeat of one of my favourite episodes of Yes Prime Minister, where Bernard does one of his Irregular Verbs: "I have an independent mind, you are eccentric, he is round the twist." All a matter of perspective, eh? (Forgive me if you've already quoted this one in the zine in times past, which knowing you seems not unlikely.)

[Me] I've undoubtedly seen that episode many times – 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' (this is the first time that I've noticed that they eventually got the punctuation right) vie with 'One Foot in the Grave' to be rated my favourite sitcom – but I don't think I've ever quoted that particular irregular verb here. I recently once again saw the episode of 'Yes Minister' in which Bernard explains why "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" is a Latin tag, not a Greek one. Wonderful!

[Jim Reader] Thanks for the Dominion games link - I will register as Frizfinger.

[Me] As usual I had a backlog of things waiting to be done after the trips to the Canaries. At one stage I'd hoped that I'd clear the backlog sufficiently quickly that I'd be able to fit in a month of playing some Dominion before my trip to Finland. Alas my hopes were unfounded, so as usual I shall only be playing during the 'summer', by which I mean April through October. Perhaps we'll be able to arrange to play each other at some stage, though I'm guessing that the difference in time zones will limit the opportunities to the weekend.

[Nick Kinzett] About time I updated your Directory entry for Will This Wind. Actually there's not much to change. Frequency has proven more like every 3-4 weeks (rather than the over-optimistic 2-3) and the games ran/hoped to run should now conclude "including an SF&F By Popular Demand and a Tolkienien Press game."

[Me] Thanks. You're the only zine editor that provides me with suitable updates. It really is very helpful.

[Me, last issue] We had '' and 'sned' previously in issues and 149 respectively. We also had 'sane' (as a verb) previously in issue 176, but at that time it was not an allowed word, though was in OED3.

[Me] If you look at the corrections in some of this issue's reports, you'll see that my brain was most definitely not on good form last issue, but it wasn't so screwed up as to write the above. Rather it was an editing failure. I have a template line that says "We had '' and '' previously in issues and respectively." to which the words and issue numbers get added as I check through the word list. I also have an item on my checklist that tells me to correct the 'respectively' lines as necessary. That got ticked off without having been done properly, possibly because of the extra verbiage hiding what I was supposed to be looking for.

[Chris Dawe] When I do things like this, I have a template 'line' which looks like:

That way you always have to fill in the space, or remove the blanks, or add more

[Me] Initially I was tempted by your suggestion, but with the current template most of the time no edit whatsoever is needed after I've inserted the words and issue numbers, so changing the template would have the disadvantage of creating extra work. Given that the evidence so far suggests that the current template works fine just so long as I don't clutter the line up with additional verbiage at the end, I think I'll sit back and await further developments.

[Adam Huby] I do have some doubts about your decision to split the counts in categories 2 and 5 between those with and without forenames when they were both obviously intended to be for the same person, but I guess there's some justification from the people who tried to hedge their bets by putting just Cabot and Higgins.

[Me] It's tempting to justify the decision by saying that the GM shouldn't make assumptions about what people mean, but on the other hand I do frequently correct spelling mistakes, which is another example of making such assumptions. The moral to draw from last round is that I should be explicit about whether surnames alone are acceptable.

[Adam Huby] Do the people who went for Delhi really think that northern India is part of south-east Asia, or were they just hoping that more people would decide that a highly recognisable non-qualifying city would score more than fairly obscure qualifiers?

[Kath Collman] "Interesting" categories. Hmm, I rarely watch films so have had to use a rusty pin for that category. And I now know a lot more about ornithischian dinosaurs than I did before - which was precisely nothing as I'd never heard the term. Afghanistan - torn between Iran and Pakistan, both equally valid, as are J C Bach and C P E Bach. Did I ever tell you that my maiden name was Bach, though I'm sure I'm not a descendant! And if you think I'm telling you my bra size you're very much mistaken! So I've picked a size that I think blokes might go for.

[Mike Pollard] Thanks for stitching me up with these questions, which you may remember I share with some family members. You try asking your mother-in-law to select a bra size! And don't get me started on the "ornithischian" dinosaur....

[Me] I wonder if there was anyone that didn't need to reach for the internet to discover which dinosaurs were ornithischians. I've had a mild interest in dinosaurs ever since I was a kid. About five years ago I bought 'Dinosaurs' by Darren Naish & Paul M Barrett, since when I've been familiar with the division of dinosaurs into ornithischians, sauropods and theropods – can anyone guess what two of the categories later in the game might be? – though I'd forgotten that the latter two had long been considered more closely related so were grouped together as Saurischia (saurischians). Having just been rereading the relevant section of the book, I see that it was probably wise to have forgotten that, given that there are now two competing theories, namely ornithischians and sauropods more closely related so grouped together as Phytodinosauria, and ornithischians and theropods more closely related so grouped together as Ornithoscelida.

[Mike Pollard] Oops, just been told that cup size is just the cup lettering, not the inches measurement of width. But will the other readers know that too?

[Me] Most of them evidently had a good grasp of the subject matter, but there were a couple of exceptions.

[Mike Pollard] I have a strong feeling that people will select larger cup sizes, like C and D, despite their own personal preferences. Should this become a subject of discussion in Dane's Games, or would that be too seedy? What am I talking about - can standards sink any lower than Dead Pool and famous air disasters?!

[Me] Well, Brendan often does his best to drag it down even lower in the Word Puzzle, though this time it's Chris Dawe's program doing so. What a bummer!

[Chris Hibbert] Oh, wow. I look like a shoo-in. I don't think any of the other leaders can change a 5 to a 6 to add 200 points.

I think this will be my first win in Choice, so I can hardly claim to have a superior strategy. The numbers just fell in place for me this time.

[Me] Choice is fairly certainly a game of luck modified by skill, so one needs to look at performance over several games.

[Charles Burrows] Congratulations to the winner, I know I used 1 too many numbers.

[Me] You were the top-scorer of those that used that many. Your approach might have proved correct if the game had proved a long one rather than one turn short of what I believe to be the average expected length. Some of the players that went for one fewer number got tripped up close to the end, leaving them with no chance to eliminate that -200.

For the next game I'm experimenting with announcing the maximum number of rounds that it will last. In theory that should enable players to make a more skilful choice of how many numbers to go for, but it's possible that players prefer the uncertainty. I shall ask for feedback later.

Last round I incorrectly showed Colin as having both an idle robot and two idle ore factories. He had more than enough colonists for the robot to be able to operate one of the ore factories.

* David auctions an Ecoplants. Colin gets it for 114 (30,1,2,3,2x4,6,2x12,17,23).

* David buys two titanium factories for 60 (15x4) and a colonist for 10 (2x3,4).

David Colin Mick Chris

MB 200 269 - 270

EP 30-110 31-114 - -

EP 30-112 31-113 - -

VP Val Col Robot Factories Colony upgrade cards

1st Colin Harden 76 600 9/9 8/9 3O5W1T5R2N WH,HE,No,Sc,2OL,Ro,La,3EP,PC

2nd David Hooton 70 505 19/19 0/0 2W16T2o1w HE,No,OL,2OP,MB

3rd Mick Haytack 63 430 14/14 0/0 9R4N2o6w1t4r WH,No,La,OP,MB

4th Chris Hassler 53 530 5/5 6/10 2O4W4R 3DL,WH,2Sc,2Ro,La,MB

Congratulations to Colin! That's probably the closest I've ever seen an Outpost game come to going into round 19. I think I'm right in saying that Colin could reach 75 VPs by paying up to 149 for an Ecoplants, while David could do so by paying up to 128 for one (but I keep getting different answers, so might be wrong). If so, suitable bidding by Colin, David and Mick could have pushed the game into the extra round, though it wouldn't have changed the winner.

Player Cat 1 Cat 2 Cat 3 Cat 4 Cat 5 Cat 6 Score Total Pos

Mike Woods *Pakis Shoem MissC D CPE Trice 78 169 1

Mike Pollard Pakis *HaleB MissC C CPE Trice 85 169 1=

Adam Huby *Pakis HaleB MissC D CPE Stego 86 169 1=

Derek Wilson *Pakis HaleB MissC C JC Stego 83 156 4

Jim Reader *Pakis HaleB MissC C JC Stego 83 155 5

Michael Pargman Pakis HaleB BigBa C CPE *Stego 70 154 6

Kath Collman *Pakis HaleB MissC DD JC Trice 78 152 7=

Andy York Iran HaleB MissC C CPE *Trice 66 152 7=

Brendan Whyte *Pakis HaleB Judgm DD CPE Stego 73 150 9

Bob Pitman Pakis *HaleB Airp2 D JC Stego 69 141 10

Rob Thomasson *Pakis Shoem Senio C WF Trice 60 138 11

Charles Burrows Pakis Shoem MissC D *CPE Stego 73 137 12

Ian D Wilson *Pakis Shoem MissC DD JC Trice 70 132 13

Roger Trethewey *Pakis HaleB Senio A JC Hadro 61 128 14

Brad Martin Pakis 67P/C TJHoo A *CPE Trice 55 124 15

John Walker China *Shoem MissC D CPE Trice 52 119 16

Mike Dommett Pakis HaleB *Airp2 C CPE DuckB 56 118 17

Mick Haytack China *Shoem Escap 30D CPE Stego 37 113 18

Richard Smith Pakis *HaleB MissC 36C WFE Stego 68 111 19

Chris Dawe Iran HaleB Miss2 A CPE *Iguan 35 110 20

Kevin Lee *Pakis Levy Batma C WFE Trice 55 108 21

Chris Hibbert *Iran HaleB Intru D JC Allos 35 101 22

The GM *Pakis Kohou Airp2 DD CPE Trice (60) (144)

1. A country that borders Afghanistan: Pakistan 17, Iran 3, China 2 (From your comments I got the impression that several of you expected this to be a much closer race between Iran and Pakistan).

2. A comet other than Halley's: Hale-Bopp 14, Shoemaker–Levy 9 6, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 1, Levy 1, Kohoutek 0 (Hale-Bopp was the first one that came to mind, but rashly I opted to go for the great flop of my childhood).

3. A film that starred William Shatner other than Star Trek films: Miss Congeniality 11, Airplane II 2, Senior Moment 2, Batman vs. Two-Face 1, Big Bad Mama 1, Escape from Planet Earth 1, Judgment at Nuremberg 1, Miss Congeniality 2 1, The Intruder 1, T. J. Hooker 1 (Finding myself unable to think of more than one film other than Star Trek ones that Shatner had appeared in, I looked at his IMDB entry, but nothing attracted my attention, so I stuck with Airplane II).

4. A bra cup size: C 8, D 6, A 3, DD 3, 30D 1, 36C 1 (On a website that explained bra sizes I read that 36DD is the most common in the UK, so I opted for DD. Later I saw somewhere else that D is the most common bra cup size here. Further rummaging while writing this commentary found assertions, one perhaps inevitably in a Sun article, that the average bra size is 34DD in the US and 36D in the UK. That still left me wondering why C had proved such a popular choice, but I've now found an overview by country of average breast sizes in which C features prominently because the page is using US sizing rather than UK sizing. I wouldn't want Mike Pollard to feel that I was lowering the tone of DG still further, so I'll leave it to you to spot and follow the link from that page. One surely has to doubt the reliability of the statistics at the link, but they do make me wonder whether Ecuadorian men and Norwegian women are attracted to each other).

5. A descendant of Johann Sebastian Bach who was also a composer (giving just a surname won't suffice!): Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach 12, Johann Christian Bach 7, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach 2, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach 1 (Apparently during their lives Carl Philipp Emanuel was held in greater esteem as a composer than his father).

6. An ornithischian dinosaur: Stegosaurus 9, Triceratops 9, Allosaurus 1, Duck-billed Dinosaur 1, Hadrosaurus 1, Iguanodon 1 (After a close-run race the two dinosaurs that were my childhood favourites, and for that matter still are, share the honours, so I needn't have agonised over which one to choose. The allosaurus isn't an ornithischian, but the others are. The hadrosaurus is one species of duck-billed dinosaur, aka hadrosaurid).

Round 28

Brendan Whyte 3+6=9 5+6=11 w1

Charles Burrows 3+6=9 5+6=11 w1

Chris Hibbert 3+5=8 6+6=12 w1

David Norman 1+3=4 5+6=11 w6

Derek Wilson 1+6=7 5+6=11 w3

Gary Duke 1+3=4 6+6=12 w5

John Walker 1+6=7 3+6=9 w5

Kath Collman 1+3=4 6+6=12 w5

Michael Pargman 1+3=4 6+6=12 w5

Mick Haytack 3+6=9 5+6=11 w1

Richard Smith 3+6=9 5+6=11 w1

Score 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Würfel

Chris Hibbert 870 - - 8 9 8 - 6 - 9 8 8 111111 22222- 33333-

Michael Pargman 730 - - 11 7 11 - 8 - 6 4 9 11111- 44444- 555555

Gary Duke 720 - - 9 8 12 - 6 8 4 - 9 11111- 555555 66666-

John Walker 560 - 7 7 - 9 11 9 3 10 - - 33333- 555555 66666-

Kath Collman 430 - 9 5 - 13 10 4 - 7 - 8 33333- 555555 66666-

Kevin Lee 330 - 9 4 - 9 11 6 7 - - 6 33333- 555--- 666666

Mike Woods 310 - - 5 7 7 8 9 6 10 - - 1111-- 3333-- 555555

Charles Burrows 310 - - 9 6 6 10 6 6 4 9 - 111111 22222- 66666-

Adam Huby 300 - 7 2 2 12 6 7 7 - - 9 1111-- 3333-- 555555

Brendan Whyte 210 - 8 3 - 6 10 7 8 5 9 - 111111 22222- 55555-

Richard Smith 190 - - 5 8 7 8 8 8 3 9 - 111111 22222- 55555-

David Norman 120 - - 8 10 4 9 7 6 5 7 - 11111- 33333- 666666

Derek Wilson 20 - 7 7 - 5 9 5 7 5 11 - 22222- 333333 44444-

Roger Trethewey -80 - 8 2 - 5 8 9 - 6 - - 2----- 3333-- 555555

Mick Haytack -350 - 4 4 5 8 9 3 10 3 10 - 111111 22222- 66666-

This game is open to everyone. Chris Hibbert and Kath Collman have already expressed their intention to play, so will receive reminders if necessary. Anyone else will need to get their first set of orders in on time.

IMPORTANT: I use modified rules, so please read the following carefully rather than assuming you know how the game works.

Each round the GM gives the rolls of five 6-sided dice, e.g. 1,3,3,4,5 or 2,2,3,5,5.

If, as in the first example, there are at least four different numbers, each player must use these dice by choosing one as a 'Würfel' and pairing the remaining four to make two numbers (e.g. Würfel 3, Numbers 1+5=6, 3+4=7).

If, as in the second example, there are three or fewer different numbers, each player discards one and pairs the remaining four (e.g. Discard 3, Numbers 2+2=4, 5+5=10).

During the course of the game a player may choose no more than three different Würfel numbers.

A player's participation in the game ends after the round in which a Würfel is used for the sixth time. How many rounds it will take for a player to be forced to finish will depend not only on how successfully the taking of each of the three Würfel numbers has been balanced, but also on how frequently rounds have occurred in which players discarded a die rather than taking a Würfel. My calculations suggest that the expected average game length is 29 rounds for a player that balances the three Würfel perfectly.

* For each of seventh to twelfth occurrence of 2 through 12 score 100, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 100 respectively. The thirteenth and subsequent occurrences do not add to the score. For example seven 2s scores 100, eight 3s 140 and twelve or more 7s 180.

The number of rounds per issue starts at four and in principle gradually diminishes to one, following the sequence 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, and then 1 thereafter, though in this game it will actually be 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1 because there are going to be at most 24 rounds (see the next paragraph).

For this game I'm going to try the experiment of telling you how long the game will actually be for a player that balances the three Würfel perfectly. It will be 24 rounds, so substantially shorter than the average game. At a later stage I shall solicit opinions about whether knowing the number of rounds in advance made the game better or worse.

You have read the previous paragraph, haven't you? The dice rolls for rounds 1-4 are as follows:

Round 1: 1, 2, 3, 6, 6

Round 2: 2, 3, 3, 4, 6

Round 3: 1, 2, 2, 3, 5

Round 4: 3, 4, 5, 5, 5 (discard one number instead of taking a Würfel)

Here is a summary of the rule changes from the standard game, together with my rationale for them:

* All players will discard a die whenever there are three or fewer different numbers rolled (the standard rule would allow only those players unable to take a Würfle to discard). This is an attempt at providing all players with some meaningful choice when I roll up a restricted selection of numbers.

* A player's participation in the game will end after the round in which they use a Würfel for the sixth time (the standard rule would end participation after the eighth time). The reduction is needed to keep the game to a reasonable length. There will be a significant number of rounds in which players discard a die rather than taking a Würfel. Even with this reduction the average game is likely to be somewhat longer than a normal one, namely about 29 rounds instead of 22.

* A number that has been chosen five times will score -200; it needs to be chosen a sixth time to increase the score to 0 (the standard rule would return the score to 0 when the number is chosen for the fifth time). Given that a game is expected on average to be about 30% longer than a normal one, it seems reasonable to increase the number of times a number must be chosen to eliminate the penalty. As the increase is a mere 20%, on average it's likely to be easier for players to eliminate the penalty than in a normal game, perhaps making it less unattractive to go for the extreme options (2, 3, 11 and 12).

* After the twelfth occurrence of a number no further occurrence scores (the standard rule would stop scoring after the tenth occurrence). Given that a game is expected on average to be about 30% longer than a normal one, it seems reasonable to increase the number of times a number can be scored. As the increase is a mere 20%, on average players will be more likely to reach the limit for central numbers (6, 7 and 8) than in a normal game, perhaps making them less attractive options.

I've not noticed anyone else in the Dead Pool shuffling off this mortal coil, so I believe the scores remain:

882 ChHi Chris Hibbert

100 BoPi Bob Pitman

15 AdHu Adam Huby

-61 FATE FATE

-111 MiPa Michael Pargman

-190 JoWa John Walker

-206 RiSm Richard Smith

-326 SiLa Simon Langley-Evans

-416 MiPo Mike Pollard

-617 BrWh Brendan Whyte

-722 MiDo Mike Dommett

Beyoncé : born 1981-09-04 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 43

17 points for AdHu

Boris Johnson : born 1964-06-19 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 60

0 points for FATE

David Attenborough : born 1926-05-08 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 98

-90 points for AdHu, BrWh, ChHi, JoWa, MiDo, RiSm, SiLa

David Hockney : born 1937-07-09 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 87

-67 points for MiDo, MiPo, SiLa

David Jason : born 1940-02-02 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 84

-69 points for BrWh, ChHi, MiPo, RiSm

Donald Kingsbury : born 1929-02-12 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 95

-65 points for ChHi, MiDo

Donald Trump : born 1946-06-14 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 78

-48 points for MiDo, RiSm

Eric Clapton : born 1945-03-30 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 79

-49 points for BrWh, MiPo

Franz Beckenbauer : born 1945-09-11 : died 2024-01-07 aged 78

1422 points for ChHi

George RR Martin : born 1948-09-20 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 76

-16 points for FATE

Herbie Hancock : born 1940-04-12 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 84

-64 points for BrWh, MiDo, MiPo

Holly Johnson : born 1960-02-09 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 64

-4 points for FATE

James Watson : born 1928-04-06 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 96

-36 points for ChHi

Jimmy Carter : born 1924-10-01 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 100

-90 points for BrWh, ChHi, JoWa, MiDo, RiSm, SiLa

Joe Biden : born 1942-11-20 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 82

-22 points for BrWh

Joe Johnson (snooker_player) : born 1952-07-29 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 72

-12 points for AdHu

June Spencer : born 1919-06-14 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 105

-75 points for ChHi, MiDo

Kanye West : born 1977-06-08 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 47

13 points for FATE

Keith Richards : born 1943-12-18 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 81

-66 points for BrWh, ChHi, MiPa, SiLa

King Charles III : born 1948-11-14 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 76

-16 points for FATE

Max Verstappen : born 1997-09-30 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 27

33 points for RiSm

Michael Gambon : born 1940-10-19 : died 2023-09-27 aged 82

-149 points for BrWh, ChHi, MiDo, MiPo

Nancy Sinatra : born 1940-06-08 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 84

-64 points for BrWh, MiDo, MiPo

Narendra Modi : born 1950-09-17 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 74

-14 points for FATE

Nicki Minaj : born 1982-12-08 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 42

18 points for FATE

Nigel Farage : born 1964-04-03 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 60

0 points for FATE

Phil Collins : born 1951-01-30 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 73

-13 points for SiLa

Shane MacGowan : born 1957-12-25 : died 2023-11-30 aged 65

-110 points for JoWa, MiPa, MiDo

Shannen Doherty : born 1971-04-12 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 53

7 points for MiPa

Sheila Hancock : born 1933-02-22 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 91

-31 points for FATE

Smokey Robinson : born 1940-02-19 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 84

-54 points for BrWh, MiPo

Vladimir Putin : born 1952-10-07 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 72

-42 points for MiPa, RiSm

Xi Jinping : born 1953-06-15 : if survives to end of 2024 will be 71

-11 points for FATE

* 60 divided by the number of players that selected the candidate, fractions being discarded.

* Plus 840 divided by the number of players that selected the candidate, fractions being discarded, if the candidate dies in 2024.

The scores will be updated whenever I become aware of a candidate's death. I shall check the Wikipedia pages at the beginning of both 2024 and 2025. Otherwise I shall only know that a candidate has died if I happen to see it in the news or if someone draws my attention to the event. I encourage the players to do so (it's the only thing they now have left to do in the game) not only for those candidates whose death won't get wall-to-wall coverage but also for those that will.

Rigel uses 3 JP: has trouble and rolls 5: falls

Middle Man uses 5 JP

Rapid uses 5 JP

Wankel uses 6 JP

Rival uses 6 JP

Pompey uses 6 JP

Bouncing Banker uses 6 JP

Turnstile uses 7 JP

Tiger Feet uses 7 JP

Long Felt Mount uses 7 JP

Ceasar uses 7 JP

Bagel uses 7 JP

Aintree's Jumping Hero uses 7 JP

Dogbiscuit uses 8 JP

Arkle's Jumping Heir uses 8 JP

Another Jumping Horse uses 9 JP

Fade Away uses 15 JP

Aquarius uses 16 JP

Mister Consistent uses 16 JP

Dobbin uses 16 JP

Metro Gnome uses 19 JP

Chaos Theory uses 21 JP

Rival uses 3 JP: has trouble and rolls 2: falls

Rapid uses 5 JP

Middle Man uses 7 JP

Pompey uses 8 JP

Ceasar uses 9 JP

Another Jumping Horse uses 9 JP

Bouncing Banker uses 10 JP

Arkle's Jumping Heir uses 10 JP

Bagel uses 11 JP

Aintree's Jumping Hero uses 11 JP

Metro Gnome uses 14 JP

Dogbiscuit uses 14 JP

Fade Away uses 15 JP

Tiger Feet uses 15 JP

Chaos Theory uses 16 JP

Mister Consistent uses 16 JP

Turnstile uses 16 JP

Wankel uses 16 JP

Long Felt Mount uses 16 JP

Dobbin uses 16 JP

Aquarius uses 19 JP

Rapid (Michael Pargman) 297 JP (307-5-5)

Bagel (Chris Hibbert) 292 JP (310-7-11)

Ceasar (John Walker) 277 JP (293-7-9)

Wankel (Richard Smith) 275 JP (297-6-16)

Pompey (John Walker) 271 JP (285-6-8)

Middle Man 262 JP (274-5-7)

Another Jumping Horse (Adam Huby) 262 JP (280-9-9)

Turnstile (Rob Thomasson) 259 JP (282-7-16)

Tiger Feet (Richard Smith) 258 JP (280-7-15)

Arkle's Jumping Heir (Adam Huby) 257 JP (275-8-10)

Aintree's Jumping Hero (Adam Huby) 238 JP (256-7-11)

Long Felt Mount (Mike Pollard) 235 JP (258-7-16)

Dogbiscuit (Richard Smith) 225 JP (247-8-14)

Bouncing Banker (Charles Burrows) 219 JP (235-6-10)

Mister Consistent 212 JP (244-16-16)

Chaos Theory 197 JP (234-21-16)

Dobbin (Mick Haytack) 189 JP (221-16-16)

Aquarius 177 JP (212-16-19)

Metro Gnome 173 JP (206-19-14)

Fade Away 128 JP (158-15-15)

Rival (Michael Pargman) fell at fence 18

Rigel (Michael Pargman) fell at fence 17

Stable Star (Rob Thomasson) fell at fence 16

Dire Shape (Jim Reader) fell at fence 16

General Patterns (Mick Haytack) fell at fence 13

Taking Le Tiss (Kevin Lee) fell at fence 12

Heart of Gold (Kevin Lee) fell at fence 10

Meat Packer (Rob Thomasson) fell at fence 9

Cup of Joy (Kevin Lee) fell at fence 9

Adam’s Apple (Charles Burrows) fell at fence 9

Mediator fell at fence 8

Lounge Lizard fell at fence 8

Goose Egg (Chris Hibbert) fell at fence 7

Slippery Snake (Charles Burrows) fell at fence 5

Slow Riser fell at fence 4

Polygon of Virtue (Mike Pollard) fell at fence 4

Donkey (Mick Haytack) fell at fence 4

Crassus (John Walker) fell at fence 3

Utter Catastrophe (Jim Reader) fell at fence 3

Doomed (Jim Reader) fell at fence 3

Nothing Burger (Chris Hibbert) fell at fence 2

Objective Desire (Mike Pollard) fell at fence 1

Middle Man will play the median of JPs played by other horses at the previous fence.

Orders for the above two fences, please. Orders for the second can be dependent on what happened at the first. Don't forget the rule about different JP for each of your horses!

You might have noticed that I've opened a new waiting list. If there is another game, I shall want to change the rules about falling so that the attrition rate isn't prone to rising as the field gets ever smaller. I have some vague ideas about what's necessary, but I shall only give serious thought to it once I know there is sufficient interest in another game.

In this variant you each have two independent hands. The game ends when any one hand reaches 75 VPs, but the winner is the person with the highest combined score.

Because of the way I do the adjudications, I will find it easier if you send me the orders for each of your hands in a separate email. In your orders please make sure you make it clear which hand you are referring to. If you refer to them as L and R then I shall of course assume that you are using the same notation as I am. If you refer to them as first and second hands, then I shall assume that 'first' means the first of the two in the hand order for that round.

If you haven't already done so, download "Information for Outpost Players", especially if you haven't played this variant before. It gives details of house rules etc. If you have any questions about anything therein, ask! If you have any suggestions for things that should be mentioned therein, but aren't, please tell me.

As explained in "Information for Outpost Players", in round 1 you all received cards totalling 26 and spent 20 on buying a water factory.

You should have received a separate email giving details of the cards you hold (i.e. the remaining two ore cards and your income for round 2). Contact me if you have not!

Total Megas Separates

Cards 30 44 88 Ore Wat Tit Res Mic NC OM RO MO

Colin-R 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

David-L 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

Chris-L 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

David-R 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

Chris-R 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

Colin-L 5/10 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - -

Expected

VP Val Inc Tot Col Robot Factories Colony upgrade cards

Colin Harden-R 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

David Hooton-L 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

Chris Hassler-L 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

David Hooton-R 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

Chris Hassler-R 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

Colin Harden-L 3 0 17 23 3/5 0/0 1O2W1o -

* I had incorrectly corrected KQ's route length in race 19 from 44 to 45. Quite how I managed to count it as 45 twice, which is my criterion for believing my count rather than the player's, is a mystery to me. Consequently the points awarded to CRUMBLE, KQ and ROGER for this race should have been 24, 11 and 24 respectively rather than 25, 10 and 25.

* Having already demonstrated my inability to count, I then demonstrated an inability to add up: CEB's score at the end of the round should have been 183, not 193.

* The same inability affected KQ's score at the end of the round: with the incorrect route length in race 19 it should have been 220, not 226. With the correct route length it should have been 221.

* With the correct KQ route length in race 19 CRUMBLE's and ROGER's score at the end of the round should have been 277 and 217 respectively.

15. 12-23 (60) Samraong - Ban Lung

No entries.

22. 13-61 (50) Sisophon - Takaev

CE 26. CR 33 -1(CE) -2(R). K 25 -1(CE) -2(R).

23. 21-#5 (50) Tbaeng Mean Chey - Minerals & gems

CE 37 -2(K). CR 27 -1(CE) -8(R). R 29.

24. 35-16 (50) Kampong Thum - Batdambang

CE 27 -6(R). CR 22 -3(CE) -1(R). K+R 20.

25. 41-22 (50) Phnom Penh - Stoeng Treng

CE 19 -3(CR). CR 19 -2(CE). R 19 -3(CE).

26. 55-36 (40) Kampot - Kampong Chhnang

CE 18 -1(CR) -4(K). CR 15. K 15 -1(CR) -2(R). R 15.

27. 64-44 (50) Saigon - Kampong Spueu

CR 21 -1(K). K 19. R 21 -1(K).

28. #4-54 (70) Khmer ruins - Sihanoukville

CE 43 -6(CR) -3(K). CR 35 -1(R). K 37 -6(CR) -2(R). R 38 -6(CR).

25 CE 20 → 19.

28 CE 42 → 43.

Yellow Green Orange Black

(CE) (CR) (K) (R)

22 -4+18+2 -4+10-3 -4+22-3 +4

23 -4+9-2+1 -4+23-9 +2 -4+18+8

24 -4+10-6+3 -4+17-4 -2+11 -2+12+7

25 -4+16-3+5 -4+16-2+3 -4+16-3

26 -4+7-5 -4+11+2 -4+11-3+4 -4+11+2

27 -4+15-1 -4+20+2 -4+15-1

28 -4+12-9 -4+23-1+18 -4+18-8+3 -4+17-6+3

TOTAL 34 90 61 81

CEB Yellow Chris Hibbert 183 +34 -8 = 209

(F14) - - F12 - G12 - - Samraong;

(M33) --- L34.

CRUMBLE Green Michael Pargman 277 +90 -8 -1(K) = 358

(M6) - - O5 - P6;

(O28) ---- O29;

(L6) - L5.

KQ Orange David Hooton 221 +61 +1(CR) = 283

No builds.

ROGER Black Roger Trethewey 217 +81 -8 = 290

(I11) --- - Samraong;

(D67) - - - G68 - Svay Rieng.

Newly connected cities are shown '_UNDERLINED_' (or '__DOUBLE UNDERLINED__' etc if the 6 points are split two or more ways).

15. 12-23 (60) Samraong - Ban Lung

29. 15-56 (50) Batdambang - Krong Keab

30. 24-66 (40) Kracheh - Saigon

31. 34-#6 (40) Pouset - Port/airport

32. 46-14 (50) Kampong Cham - Pailin

33. 52-26 (60) Srae Ambel - Sen Monorom

34. 62-31 (50) Prey Veaeng - Siem Reap

35. #2-42 (50) Laos - Phnom Penh

c) the maximum you can pay to use opponents' track is one third of your total route length (to a maximum of 10).

After the races you may build up to 8 points of track (excluding payments to rivals) from your treasury. There are no junction or parallel payments for track built in the same round.

See the latest map if you want to check that you and I agree on what it looks like.

Round 12: 11-23, 25-32, 33-45, 43-51, 53-65, 63-#1, #3-12

Dane-Chris: I know full well what your first build was meant to be, but what you actually ordered was both legal and internally consistent, so I had no option but to accept it as it stood, thereby causing your second build to be curtailed.

Player Lat Lon Location & Person

Adam Huby -8.24, -35.75 Bezerros, Brazil

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

Bob Pitman -5.78, -35.20 Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

Thaisa Storchi Bergmann (????-)

Brendan Whyte 6.46, 3.38 Lagos, Nigeria

Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961)

Chris Hibbert 2.82, -60.67 Boa Vista, Roraima

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

Ian D Wilson 53.85, -1.81 Gilstead, West Yorkshire

Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001)

Jim Reader 32.65, -16.92 Funchal, Madeira

Marcelo Gleiser (1959-)

Richard Smith -9.67, -35.73 Maceió, Brazil

Marcia Barbosa (????-)

Tom Howell -8.24, -35.75 Bezerros, Brazil

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

As an experiment I've prepared a couple of GPX files that might be of interest to anyone reading the commentary. If anyone makes use of them and finds them useful, please let me know as otherwise I shan't repeat the experiment.

One file, available here, shows how the possible hiding area was reduced round by round. The other, available here, shows all the guessed locations for each rounds together with the area that each round's closest guess covered. After downloading a file upload it to GPS Visualizer (click on 'Import a GPS file', then click on 'Browse' to select the file you downloaded, and finally click on 'Import') to view it. Note that hovering over a map element in the list at the right will cause it to be highlighted, which will be particularly useful if you have chosen to upload both files onto the same map.

Below are the GM's and players' comments as the game progressed. As usual I caution against trying to read it all in one go.

[Me] A year or so before starting this game it had occurred to me to wonder if I knew anyone that had an entry in Wikipedia. Clearly there were some game designers that I had met that did so, but what about people that I knew better? Someone I knew from our astronomy course at university seemed the most likely candidate, and she did indeed have an entry. As she's Brazilian, I also took a look at her Portuguese Wikipedia page, where I discovered that a rocket launching site had been named after her. So it is that Rosaly Lopes comes to be hiding in Bezerros, Brazil.

Now all I have to do is make sure that when I give clues I don't accidentally use information about her that's not known to the Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly it doesn't know that she played 'Diplomacy' and 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' at university, though admittedly only at the behest of her boyfriend (later husband, later ex-husband). He attends ManorCon, so if you can guess who he is, you can ask him if he's ever heard of anyone losing Byzantium twice as the Romans in a game of Decline and Fall. Snigger!

Wikipedia is also ignorant of the names of her first two cats, namely Canopus and Arcturus. I'm sure you can all see why an astronomer might name a cat Canopus, but maybe Arcturus isn't so obvious. It's Puss in Boötes. I believe that for subsequent cats she gave up on astronomical puns.

9596 Adam Huby 47.22, 39.71 Rostov-on-Don

Harold Lloyd (1893-1971)

17288 Bob Pitman -12.44, 130.84 Darwin, Australia

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)

6739 Brendan Whyte -17.92, 25.86 Victoria Falls, Africa

David Livingstone (1813-1873)

10014 Chris Hibbert 51.18, -115.57 Banff, Alberta

Karch Kiraly (1960-)

8695 Ian D Wilson 54.40, 20.63 Preussisch Eylau

Lt General Marcelin Marbot (1782-1854)

13444 Jim Reader 19.06, -155.58 Naalehu, Hawaii

Stepin Fetchit (1902-1985)

7428 Richard Smith 35.70, -89.41 Nutbush, Tennessee

Tina Turner (1939-2023)

14023 Tom Howell -37.43, 175.10 Battle of Rangiriri

Mahuta Tāwhiao I (c.1855-1912)

Nearest player was Brendan Whyte: David Livingstone (1813-1873) in Victoria Falls, Africa: 6798km.

Clue to person with closest guess: Science is central to my career, unlike yours.

[Me] With not a single scientist amongst your guesses, I knew I wanted to give a clue that would get you looking for scientists as soon as possible. As Livingstone did some field science during his exploration and missionary work, I had to phrase the clue carefully. I hope I have succeeded both in making it applicable to Livingstone and not making it obvious that it applies to him even though none of the others have a career even vaguely related to science.

While checking that my program had produced sensible GPX files I discovered that the coordinates I had for Bezerros were in fact those of Garanhuns. Quite how I had perpetrated that idiocy was a mystery to me, but I duly corrected it and repeated the distance calculations. Then a thought occurred to me. Sure enough, the Portuguese Wikipedia page for Bezerros gave its coordinates as those of Garanhuns. Presumably someone had cut and pasted something, but then forgotten to edit it. I really ought to do whatever's necessary to be able to edit Wikipedia entries.

[Adam Huby] A very wide selection of starting locations this time. It looks as if I can rule out the Middle East, Asia north and west of the Himalayas and most of southern Europe.

As usual the first clue doesn't give much away, though I think I can exclude Mahuta Tāwhiao I, on the grounds of not really having a career, and David Livingstone, though the latter would depend on whether or not you count geographical exploration as being scientific.

I'm not sure about the remarkable Hedy Lamarr; the clue might be a pointer to this issue's closest having some scientific involvement, but it not being the focus of their life, in which case it would seem to lead directly to her. On the other hand, it could be intended to suggest that they had nothing whatever to do with science, in which case she can probably be excluded, but I think all the others are in the frame.

[Bob Pitman] Well the clue gave nothing away, I know its not Hedi who looks to be the only person with any science at all in her background… so no clues there, go for a scientist and stab to try and eliminate as much map as possible!

[Ian D Wilson] Well, your clue doesn't help much, since all suggested people (except perhaps Livingston) weren't scientists.

[Me] Au contraire, the clue was very helpful: it hugely narrowed the field of possible Kendos.

[Jim Reader] No analysis this time, but I did recall that Hedy Lamarr was a scientist with a number of significant inventions, although much better known as an actress, so I'll follow Bob P to Australia and guess at Albert Einstein at Uluru.

[Richard Smith] Not worth much analysis at this point. None of the choices is a scientist apart from David Livingstone at a push. So it's a potshot this time, map-furtling next.

[Tom Howell] Round one: Quite helpful: I can rule out Easter Island! But not Isla Salas y Gomez. Drat!

Well, ... and also all of New Zealand, a good part of Polynesia, most of Antarctica, southern tip of South America, and a strip of Australia from Brisbane to Melbourne including Tasmania.

Not sure I could eliminate any of the other players as closest based on the clue. As far as I can tell, the closest to being 'a scientist' is -- wait for it -- Hedy Lamarr with her spread spectrum and frequency hopping invention. However, that certainly wasn't central to her acting career.

Next consideration: "IS central", I think, implies that Kendo is alive. Unfortunately, I think I can not extend that state to the recipient of the clue. Which, if I could, would be nice, as only one of the proposed Kendos is currently among the breathing.

[Me] Sometimes I go to huge lengths to phrase a clue so as to avoid indicating the alive/dead status of the Kendo and the candidate Kendo. I've sometimes wondered whether I should specify that all clues will be phrased as though from a living person to a living person. But is that what a ghost talking to a ghost would do?

[Tom Howell] To bluff or not to bluff is the next question. I guess bluffing would be best done by going to somewhere in eastern Australia, say Sydney. While tempting, I think I'll try for someplace with more opportunity: North America.

As for science being central to Kendo's career, ... I thought about the recently retired (only to move on to another job) Chief Editor at Scientific American: Mariette DiChristina, but here Wikipedia page is tiny so I decided on :

Laura Lee Helmuth is an American science journalist and the editor in chief of Scientific American.

Which I expect will give you fits, as her birth data does not appear on her Wikipedia page. <heh>

[Me] Adam has made it clear that he's aware of the two possible interpretations of the first clue. It's possible that some of the rest of you aren't, but those that have opted for the wrong interpretation will presumably eventually realise their error.

16434 Adam Huby 22.54, 114.06 Shenzhen, China

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

6928 Bob Pitman 17.04, 21.86 Ennedi Plateau

Robert Hooke (1635-1703)

8230 Brendan Whyte 31.20, 29.89 Alexandria

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

7420 Chris Hibbert 51.75, -1.25 University of Oxford

Becky Smethurst (????-)

7446 Ian D Wilson 51.49, -0.10 Newington Butts, Southwark, London

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

16027 Jim Reader -25.34, 131.04 Uluru

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

8066 Richard Smith 48.21, 16.37 Vienna, Austria

Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (1887-1961)

8696 Tom Howell 45.01, -99.96 Gettysburg, South Dakota

Laura Lee Helmuth (????-)

Nearest player was Bob Pitman: Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in Ennedi Plateau: 6928km.

Clue to person with closest guess: Although it's not what you are most famous for, at one stage you investigated something that I also investigated early in my career, though a different aspect of it.

[Me] Robert Hooke observed the rotation of Mars. Rosaly's thesis compared volcanic processes on Earth and Mars. Thus they both investigated aspects of Mars. Given how wide ranging Robert Hooke's contributions to science were, I doubt that this clue is going to be very helpful.

Ian's the only person to have stayed in his R1 area. Will other players fall for it?

This round's guesses haven't done much to reduce the area in which Kendo could be hiding. Other than a few islands only a small part of South America and a tiny part of the Horn of Africa have been eliminated. I'm curious to see what will happen when and if multiple players start nosing around in Africa. Will they overlook the bit of Brazil that is in the potential hiding area?

[Adam Huby] So it looks as if I can now rule out pretty much the whole of Asia for wherever they're hiding.

Only Ian seems to have remained in the vicinity of his round 1 guess, with Marcellin Marbot certainly fitting the clue, though that's hardly conclusive.

That would imply one of Ian, Chris or Richard being closest this time, and the clue seems unlikely to refer to Becky Smethurst. It looks as if it could work for either of the others, though, with Schrodinger having done work on genetics in addition to his quantum theory, and Faraday doing some chemistry as well as his work on electricity and magnetism.

Since the kendo apparently only overlapped with that work early in their career, we'll probably need a better clue to find them.

I doubt if this really fits, but let's say Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) in Valencia, Spain.

[Bob Pitman] Nice, so Sub-Saharan Africa or a small slice of Coastal Brazil. Hookes research was pretty wide so wondering how I guess without giving it away that Hooke was the public answer.

||https://www.pancrit.org/2007/08/sunny-auyang-how-is-quantum-field.html|| but she doesn't have a wikipedia page.

[Jim Reader] Lots of famous physicists to choose from. No time for detailed analysis yet, so I'll opt for Marie Curie in Warszawa, Poland.

[Me] When I'm playing WITWIKN I tend to make random guesses in the early stages, though I do pay attention to how players are moving around. Proper analysis can usually wait until later. Alas even after proper analysis I still sometimes find myself reduced to making random guesses in the later stages of a game too.

[Richard Smith] I'm going to guess Ian nearest for R1 then Ian (Faraday) or Chris (Smethurst) for R2.

"Although it's not what you are most famous for, at one stage you investigated something that I also investigated early in my career, though a different aspect of it."

Smethurst is known for Astrophysics and YouTubing, whilst Faraday dabbled in a wider range of things (chemistry before electromagnetism), so is a bit more likely to be the recipient of the clue.

[Tom Howell] Most of us jumped around, but Ian stayed in his initial area. As for the clue, as I see it, there are two, maybe three, who it might fit like a glove - the rest of them: no science to speak of.

1) Hedy Lamarr was an inventor, but it wasn't central to her career - we know her primarily as an actress.

2) Harold Lloyd: I've gotten the impression that stunt performers are up on their physics - Newtonian good enough. So similar to Hedy, but perhaps more central?

3) Marbot: Can't tell from his Wikipedia page what he studied at the Military College - nowadays there would be fair amount of science subjects. Back then?

6419 Adam Huby 39.47, -0.38 Valencia, Spain

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)

6397 Bob Pitman -32.38, 20.81 Southern African Large Telescope

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

4544 Brendan Whyte 16.78, -3.01 Timbuktu

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

11254 Chris Hibbert 34.34, 62.20 Herat, Afghanistan

Lee Smolin (1955-)

8005 Ian D Wilson 37.98, 23.73 Athens, Greece

Aristotle (384BC-322BC)

8588 Jim Reader 52.23, 21.01 Warszawa, Poland

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

7776 Richard Smith 51.45, 7.01 Essen, Germany

Robert Bunsen (1811-1899)

7282 Tom Howell 47.46, 3.52 Clamecy, Nièvre, France

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

Nearest player was Brendan Whyte: Thomas Edison (1847-1931) in Timbuktu: 4544km.

[Me] I couldn't spot anything that Edison and Rosaly had in common, so opted to start pointing you towards her year of birth.

It seems that Brendan successfully fooled most people by moving out of his R1 area. Will they notice that he has now almost moved back into it? Bob has stayed in his R2 area (in the process visiting the SAAO, somewhere I went to twice as a postgrad astronomer), which might attract the other players' attention to Africa and cause them to consider Brendan's movements more carefully.

A large chunk of Africa has been removed from the permitted hiding area this round, but the question remains "Will players other than Bob notice that a strip of Brazil is also possible?"

[Adam Huby] Iberia and the north-western coastline of Africa join the regions that can be ruled out.

Ian remains in Europe, apparently confirming that he received the round 1 clue, but moves most of the way across the continent, suggesting he didn't get it in round 2. However, Richard stays in northern Europe, making a strong case for having been closest in round 2. If that's the case, then any of Richard, Jim, Tom or Ian could have struck lucky this time, with Ian probably the least likely as I think most of the Balkans would have been closest to me in round 1. Of course, the clue itself also renders Ian rather unlikely.

So the balance of probability seems to be that we're looking for a scientist who died between 1781 and 1791, or 1826 and 1847, or was born between 1919 and 1929, or 1954 and 1973.

[Bob Pitman] So either Timbuktu and Edison or Athens and Aristotle? Small chance of Herat and Smolin. I think Edison looks most promising although not sure about the link to Hooke of the above. Born 1951 – 1961 OR 1817 to 1827.

[Chris Hibbert] Both Bob and Richard stayed within their zones after turn 2. Other than me, everyone was inside a North-South band from -3 degrees to +25 degrees.

[Jim Reader] Still not much time for a detailed analysis, so I'll observe that Richard hasn't moved too far.

[Richard Smith] I could change horses from R2, but I might as well stick for now, so that means Wilson, Wilson, Howell or Wilson, Wilson, Huby or perhaps Wilson, Hibbert, Howell.

I'll have a guess at Tom [Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)] being nearest, so Kendo would have to have died around 1830 or been born around 1970.

I see Ian shuffling around in Europe, joined by Richard in round 2 and then a bunch of us in round 3. I also see Brendan wandering around Africa, joined by Bob in round 2. Whilst Brendan generally explores the periphery of the action, might this game be an exception? What the heck, at the moment, Europe looks too crowded. If Brendan and Bob are playing the Dane gambit, they might just jump up to Europe and leave me to rule out a big chunk of the second largest continent. Wouldn't that be nice?

7465 Adam Huby 45.82, 9.08 Como, Italy

Alessandro Volta (1745-1827)

6189 Bob Pitman 4.37, 18.56 Bangui, CAR

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

4827 Brendan Whyte 13.51, 2.12 Niamey, Niger

Henry Cavendish (1731-1810)

6104 Chris Hibbert 24.55, 9.49 Djanet, Algeria

Robert Bunsen (1811-1899)

7776 Ian D Wilson 48.14, 11.57 Munich, Germany

Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer (1929-2011)

7527 Jim Reader 50.85, 2.88 Ypres, Belgium

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

7081 Richard Smith 48.11, -1.68 Rennes, France

Sylvaine Neveu (1968-)

6564 Tom Howell 2.18, 22.47 Bumba, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Robert Alan Eustace (1957-)

Nearest player was Brendan Whyte: Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) in Niamey, Niger: 4827km.

Clue to person with closest guess: Although you are best known for your work in other areas, you also had an interest in the subject in which I gained my degree. You had some dealings with a location where I later worked.

[Me] Cavendish had an interest in astronomy, which was Rosaly's degree subject. Cavendish was involved in helping to assess the instruments of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. For a while Rosaly was Curator of Modern Astronomy and Deputy Head of the Astronomy Section at the Old Royal Observatory. I nearly made the mistake of including "We have both had establishments named after us" as part of the clue, but then I remembered that the rocket base in Bezerros that is named after Rosaly is not mentioned in her English Wikipedia page.

Will the players that believe Kendo is hiding in Europe continue to assume that one of the others there got the clue? Or will they notice the growing number of players nosing around in Africa?

Will anyone notice that Brendan's guess was within both his own R1 and R3 areas, while Bob's was within his own R2 one? Or will they be misled by Ian's guess being within his own R1 area?

This round's guesses have roughly halved the permitted hiding area in Africa, but have not affected it in Brazil. Consequently there's now almost as much of Brazil within the area as there is of Africa. Will any of the players in Africa decide that the time has come to investigate Brazil?

[Adam Huby] Well, this has taken a somewhat surprising turn, as the number of people exploring Africa suddenly doubles and, more to the point, that number includes both those who were already there, while none of those who stay in Europe move in a manner that suggests that they had received the round 3 clue. Revisiting the earlier rounds, it does now appear that Brendan and Bob have been submitting orders consistent with Brendan having been closest in rounds 1 and 3 and Bob the nearest in round 2, and a hiding place somewhere in central or northern Africa.

I had more or less ruled Africa out, on the grounds that the first clue probably eliminated David Livingstone, but if I now have to deduce that it didn't then I can only conclude that you've excluded science as being central to his career, either because the main motivation for his exploration was missionary zeal rather than adding to the sum of western knowledge, or because you're using a strict definition of science that excludes geographical knowledge. Both reasonable views, but I'd still feel that that particular clue was at least somewhat misleading, though whether deliberately or inadvertently so I couldn't say.

[Me] Looking back at the responses to the R1 clue, it's apparent that one player ruled Livingstone out for the very opposite reason to Adam, while another was close to doing so.

[Adam Huby] At any rate, it looks as if round 2 referred to Robert Hooke and round 3 to Thomas Edison, but the first of these leads to another potential problem, as I'm not at all sure what Hooke is most famous for. Hooke's Law? His feud with Newton? His work with microscopes? In any case, he worked in so many areas that it seems unlikely that this clue is going to help much in pinning down the kendo. It does appear that we might be after someone who died between 1817 and 1827 or was born between 1951 and 1961, though.

This round's clue could have gone to any of the four now in Africa, but the use of the past tense probably rules out Robert Eustace, and I think it's unlikely to refer to Hawking. The reference to the kendo's degree subject, meanwhile, I suspect means that we're not after someone who died in the early 19th century; that would mean doing their studying in the 18th century and, while I'm not 100% certain, I don't believe that degrees in that period were subject-based, except in the most general sense, though I suppose it's possible we could be after someone who studied theology or medicine then switched to some form of scientific research. Far more likely now, though, is that we're after someone born between 1951 and 1961.

Putting all this together, it look as if the kendo is a scientist, born between 1951 and 1961, hiding somewhere in sub-Saharan north-west Africa, and whose interests have some overlap with those of Robert Hooke and one of Henry Cavendish or Robert Bunsen. Unfortunately, though, all three of those appear to have had very wide ranging areas of study, so at this stage those clues aren't massively helpful in pinning down exactly what the kendo does, or did. The phrasing of both clues 2 and 4 does suggest that the kendo's later work was in a different field from their early studies but, again, that's not a real aid to deducing what those fields might be.

[Chris Hibbert] There seem to be two groups of players, who favor either Europe or Africa, and I don't have enough info to distinguish them. At the moment, my money seems to be riding with those focusing on Africa. Both are plausible, but no one in Europe seems to be zeroing in in an area they've explored.

At the moment, I'm thinking the correct guesses might be Kaliningrad, Chad, Timbuktu, Niger. This would mean we're looking for a scientist whose studies overlapped with Hooke and Cavendish. He(?) died between 1817 and 1827. Kendo "gained" a degree.

Cavendish Chemist/Physicist. Hydrogen, water synthesis, electric attraction and repulsion, heat, density, meterological instruments

Hooke was a polymath, scientist, and architect. He studied microscopes, vacuum, telescopes, geology, paleontology, gravity, clocks. Protoge to Boyle. Awarded Master of Arts degree. Royal Society

Edward Jenner "gained a degree" in medicine. No connection to the British Museum that I could see.

Joseph Banks got an honorary degree, (for botanical work). He was connected to the British Museum. President of the Royal Society.

[Ian D Wilson] Well, this is a real puzzler! But I'm starting to get a bit closer, maybe. I've realised that those of us poking around in Europe are wrong - if the location was in western Europe then I'd have been closest in round one. Also, your round one clue was "Science is central to my career..." which implies a living person.

I'm beginning to suspect that Brendan has been closest all along, so we're looking for somewhere in western Africa and somebody born in the 1950's (missed Edison by 20-30 years). But I don't know of any scientists from that region, nor can I find any...

[Richard Smith] The clues aren't helping me decide between Europe and Africa. I have noticed that Tom has changed horses from Europe to Africa suggesting he wasn't closest in R3, or perhaps he is misdirecting. Hmmm.

OK, for the time being, I'll stay in the same area and guess that Jim or Adam could be closest so the clue would apply to Faraday or Volta.

3870 Adam Huby 9.42, -5.62 Korhogo, Ivory Coast

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954-)

4343 Bob Pitman 6.61, 0.47 Ho, Ghana

Martin Rees (1942-)

3377 Brendan Whyte -15.97, -5.70 Saint Helena

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

4777 Chris Hibbert 16.27, -0.05 Gao, Mali

Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

4231 Ian D Wilson 5.55, -0.20 Accra, Ghana

Reinhard Genzel (1952-)

7001 Jim Reader 39.23, 9.11 Cagliari, Sardinia

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

7218 Richard Smith 45.76, 4.84 Lyon, France

Richard Chenevix (1774-1830)

5247 Tom Howell 8.49, 8.52 Lafia, Nigeria

Sally Kristen Ride (1951-2012)

Nearest player was Brendan Whyte: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) in Saint Helena: 3377km.

Clue to person with closest guess: From my place of birth one could reasonably deduce that our native tongues differed. From my career one could reasonably deduce that later in our lives we had a language in common.

[Me] Coming up with a clue would have been so much easier if Bob or Chris had been closest. Finding anything in common between Napoleon Bonaparte and Rosaly wasn't easy, but they both learnt English at some stage in their lives, so I opted to base the clue on that. Rosaly's Wikipedia page doesn't, however, state what languages she speaks, so I had to phrase the clue appropriately.

This round saw two more players decamping from Europe to Africa – surely Jim and Richard will now get the message – but their comments suggest that they haven't noticed that part of Brazil is still in the running. Brendan on the other hand should now be able to work out that it's the only show in town. Well, other than Ascension Island and a few other islands in the South Atlantic. Will anyone else follow him westwards?

[Adam Huby] This is getting more and more confusing; the clues continue to remain vague, except possibly to the people who receive them, and locations continue to wander around in ways that make it hard to identify who is getting the clues.

The person whose latest guess most looks as if they had the round 4 clue is Richard, but if that's correct then Tom must have had the round 3 clue and he immediately fled to the heart of Africa, whence he seems to show no inclination to depart, which seems to make my deduction about Richard rather unlikely.

Of round 4's Africans, both Tom and Bob moved significantly away, while Brendan's leap into the Atlantic looks peculiar if he had the clue, though not impossible. Which seems to leave Chris as most likely the closest in round 4, and very likely in this round as well. If true, as Joseph Banks seems to have been thoroughly English, it looks as if we're after someone born in a non-English speaking country, who later moved to such a country, while my previous guesses of being born between 1951 and 1961, and having interests overlapping those of Thomas Hooke and Robert Bunsen, remain valid.

I can't really say that any of this seems to be getting me significantly closer to the kendo.

[Chris Hibbert] At first I discounted the possibility of Saint Helena, because the only plausible sequences leading here didn't give any hope to those who had been exploring Europe, and were still looking at the Mediterranean. But then I noticed that the remaining plausible paths to the Med depended on Ian's Round 1 pick, and he had given up on Europe and joined the group in central Africa.

It now appears that Brendan was closest on Round 1. I'm pretty sure that Bob got round 2 and Brendan round 3. Round 4 could have gone to either of those last two, and round 5 is pretty up-in-the air from what I can see.

The only player who is choosing birthdates that match their guess from Round 3 is Brendan. Round 4's clue doesn't seem very different from Round 2, though maybe later it will mean more.

Clue 1 can be read to say that Kendo is alive. If Brendan had T3, Kendo was born 1950-1960.

Early in his career, he had some overlap with Robert Hooke, but that covers a pretty broad range.

Hawking or Cavendish "had an interest in the subject in which Kendo gained his degree". And had dealings with a location where Kendo worked (after getting his degree).

Kendo grew up outside the English/French speaking world, but later worked where one of those languages was common.

Taking Saint Helena seriously, I'm looking at coastal Brazil, and have found a somewhat prominent Brazilian astrophysicist, now working in the US, who was born in the 50s.

[Me] When I read that last sentence, I thought for a moment that Chris might have identified Kendo. I was relieved when I read on and discovered that he hadn't. I was also relieved that I'd not gone with my first thought, her place of birth, when selecting a hiding place for Rosaly. On the other hand I was disappointed that Chris's guess wasn't the closest one as it would have been very easy to come up with a clue if he had been.

[Ian D Wilson] Well, I'm still none the wiser! So, continuing the principle of a family connection (my parents met & married there) I'll go for

[Jim Reader] I'm sorry that I still don't have any time for detailed analysis, so it will be another wild guess again.

[Richard Smith] Despite the previous clues not helping me get out of Schroedinger's box of Europe and Africa superposed, I now know it must be Africa as I wasn't nearest on R2 or R5. For Jim to be nearest in R5 I would have to be nearest in R2.

Also, as I mentioned last time, people who would have been the nearest in earlier rounds for a Euro-Kendo have all buggered off to Africa, so I'm packing the sun-tan lotion and heading south.

R2 Pitman - scientist who investigated something (not his most famous thing) which Kendo also studied early

R5 ? Clue to person with closest guess: From my place of birth one could reasonably deduce that our native tongues differed. From my career one could reasonably deduce that later in our lives we had a language in common.

Might as well try Genzel as he worked in USA, so Kendo would be from English-speaking country (US,Canada,UK,Australia etc.) somewhere in Wilson's smallish area (South Ghana).

[Me] I find it mildly amusing that Richard has realised that the action has been in Africa, but has failed to notice that parts of Brazil are in the permitted area, so has excluded Brendan from the list of possible recipients of the R5 clue. Might this round's minor invasion of Brazil cause him to reconsider again?

Through turn 4 there appeared to be two areas where Kendo might be hiding. In the first, I saw Ian wandering around Europe as if he'd received the first clue. About half the punters were trying to help him or confuse the matter depending on one's point of view.

The other area was Africa. One can often go astray relying on Brendan's moves in this game. However, in this instance, all of his moves have been consistent with his having received clues from rounds one, three and, four. If that is indeed the case, then Bob received the second clue, and his subsequent moves have also been consistent with that.

My unenlightened moves have only succeeded in whittling away the central African possibilities.

Now we get to round 5. Most of the European crowd have abandoned that area and are crowding into Brendan's preserve. Which raises the question: "Why did Brendan move to Helena?" Helena in not a possible hiding place (assuming Brendan received the 3rd clue), but ... it is not impossible that Brendan received the 5th clue, which would imply that Kendo is somewhere on the east coast of Brazil.

If Brendan did not received the 5th clue, then Kendo is somewhere in southern West Africa, and I don't currently see how to logically choose one of the four areas he could be in. So,... I'm going to see if I can eliminate the South American hiding place option.

I have not made a rigorous attempt to match my nominee with all the clues; some, yes, but not all. So here is a candidate that won't match up on the Bonapartian languages, but does with all the others. Hopefully, it will confuse some of the competition.

4964 Adam Huby 27.68, -8.13 Tindouf, Algeria

Jim Al-Khalili (1962-)

4343 Bob Pitman 6.61, 0.47 Ho, Ghana

Martin Rees (1942-)

3980 Brendan Whyte -37.12, -12.30 Tristan da Cunha

Tristão da Cunha (c.1460-c.1540)

1809 Chris Hibbert -22.91, -43.21 Rio de Janeiro

Marcelo Gleiser (1959-)

4730 Ian D Wilson 7.40, 3.92 Ibadan, Nigeria

Ken Goldberg (1961-)

7214 Jim Reader 43.73, 7.42 Monaco

Carlo Giuseppe Matteo Marangoni (1840-1925)

4044 Richard Smith 4.92, -1.77 Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

George Efstathiou (1955-)

602 Tom Howell -12.97, -38.48 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

Carlos A. Bertulani (????-)

Nearest player was Tom Howell: Carlos A. Bertulani (????-) in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil: 602km.

Clue to person with closest guess: You were born in the same country as me. You work in the same country as me. There is one big difference between us. Incidentally there is no clue to my hiding place in my English Wikipedia entry.

[Me] Rosaly and Bertulani were both born in Brazil, and both now work in the USA. Will any of the players guess the significance of the third part of the clue and finally start looking for a female scientist? Just one female was suggested in each of rounds 2 through 5, and none whatsoever this round. Just in case these clues now enable any player to identify Rosaly as Kendo I decided to be helpful and save them the effort of searching her English Wikipedia entry for a clue to where she is hiding. But will anyone spot the hint that looking at a foreign Wikipedia entry might provide the necessary clue? Portuguese would be the obvious one to try, but various others will also yield it.

It occurs to me that the above clue provides exactly the same information to anyone that assumes Chris was closest as to anyone that assumes Tom was closest, so the important thing this round is to realise that Brazil is where the action is. The players' movements might, however, cause some confusion. Brendan's move is consistent with him having received the clue in R1, while Bob's is consistent with him having received the clue in R2. No one's move is consistent with their having having received the R3 or R4 clue, but both Brendan and Bob have moved consistent with having received the R5 clue. I suspect Bob of deliberately attempting to sow confusion.

[Adam Huby] Yet more strangeness, as two players, almost inexplicably, decide to head off to South America, including Chris who had appeared to be quite at home in west Africa. Meanwhile, Brendan continues touring some of the world's most remote islands, while Bob doesn't change his guess at all.

Some important deductions from this round's use of the present tense in the clue, though, are that the kendo is definitively still alive and, since this also applies to this round's closest suggestion, I can rule out Carlo Marangoni and hence, once and for all, eliminate any remaining nagging doubts I had that the kendo might be hiding in Europe.

So I'm now even more confident that they're in sub-Saharan west Africa and so, once again, we're after a scientist, who, early in their career, investigated something that Robert Hooke also investigated, was born between 1951 and 1961, gained a degree in a subject in which Henry Cavendish also had some interest and worked somewhere that was also connected with Henry Cavendish.

Given Chris's and Tom's decisions to head off thousands of miles south-west, I have to assume that the round 5 clue went to Bob or Ian, which would mean we want someone who moved to a country where the native language is English or German, but was born somewhere where a different language is spoken.

This round's clue could have gone to any of Bob, Ian or Richard; usually I would regard Bob's failure to move as a definitive indicator that he had been closest the previous round, but since he also didn't change his nominee, and the clues indicate that the kendo hasn't yet been guessed, it may just be that he was short of time for doing his round 6 orders.

However, at this point I've hit a major problem. The round 5 clue seems to clearly indicate that the kendo was born in one country but has spent much of their career in another, which has a different native language, while the latest one says that this round's closest nominee has followed the same journey. But, as far as I can see, both Martin Rees and George Efstathiou have spent pretty much all of their lives in the UK; I haven't actually been able to find out where the latter was born and his surname obviously suggests that he might be Greek, but he's described as British and was apparently educated over here, so probably doesn't fit. Ken Goldberg was born in Nigeria then moved to the U.S., which is at least something of a match, but, even then, English is the national language of Nigeria, so the round 5 clue doesn't really work.

Hmmm... could the South Americans be onto something? They've both nominated Brazilians who moved to the States, which would be a better fit for round 5, except that if the kendo is there then Brendan would have had the round 5 clue, so we'd be looking for someone who ended up moving to a French-speaking country, and I can see no evidence that either of the Brazilians have done this.

Uggh - I'm becoming completely baffled; all the potential hiding places seem to lead to some sort of contradiction in one of the relevant clues and I'm not at all sure I'll have heard of the kendo if I can unravel the contradictions.

[Me] In his consideration of the possibility that the South Americans are onto something Adam has overlooked the possibility of both Napoleon and the Kendo having learnt the same second language, namely English. He is, however, correct in thinking that he's unlikely to have heard of Kendo – I think I made a comment to that effect at the start of the game – though Rosaly has appeared in various science documentaries such as Horizon.

[Chris Hibbert] I think this meanders, because I changed my mind back and forth. Feel free to excerpt for the final report.

The Round 6 clue doesn't match Brendan, Richard, Jim, or Tom. Did Bob repeat his guess on round 6, or was that an NMR or an accident?

I think Ian is the most likely to have been closest on Round 6. I thought It was Adam on Round 5, but Tom is looking more likely now because of the map regions.

Hooke was a polymath, so there's not much to learn from Round 2's clue. Round 4 is also more good for confirmation than finding a candidate.

Round 5 tells us that kendo was born elsewhere, but works in the US. And thus, from Round 6, we conclude that Ian was closest, and Kendo was born in Nigeria.

[Me] Chris doesn't say why he thinks Tom couldn't have received the R6 clue, but having incorrectly assumed that to be the case, he's condemned to confusion.

[Ian D Wilson] I am now even more confused than ever! So here is a random guess.

[Jim Reader] As my earlier gpx files got messed up, these deductions are based on my map estimates. Assuming Kendo is somewhere in West Africa, then

Round 3 - Again, probably Brendan so Kendo was either died around 1817 - 1827 or was born in the 1950s.

Round 4 - A few possibles - Stephen Hawking in Bangul, CAR, Henry Cavendish in Niamey or Robert Bunsen in Algeria. Clue 2 and 4 are quite similar

Round 5 - Reinhard Genzel seems reasonable - German Astrophysicist. Clue indicates that Kendo was not born German but they both spoke a common language.

Round 6 - George Efstathiou continues the astrophysicist theme - English with ties to Berkeley and Cambridge.

[Me] Between the second and third years of my degree course I had a summer job at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, which is where Jocelyn worked at the time. I undoubtedly spoke to her occasionally at lunch, but it would be going a bit far to say that she is someone else with a Wikipedia entry that I know (or even knew).

Sod it, I'm going to join Tom and Chris in Brazil. Gleiser and Bertulani both work in USA. So lets try some Brazilian physicists who work in USA. The "one big difference" could be gender so I was drawn to Beatriz Barbuy, who did work in France (Napoleon R5?) But she currently works in Brazil and the DOB is slightly out of range.

[Me] The geographical penny has dropped for Richard. Judging by other people's guesses, he's not the only one to have deduced what the big difference is.

3588 Adam Huby 5.78, -6.60 Soubré, Ivory Coast

Chryssa Kouveliotou (????-)

3828 Bob Pitman 5.32, -4.03 Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Maggie Aderin-Pocock (1968-)

2992 Brendan Whyte -25.30, -57.63 Asunción, Paraguay

Josef Mengele (1911-1979)

4621 Chris Hibbert 8.48, 2.43 Ouèssè, Benin

Philip Emeagwali (1954-)

4544 Ian D Wilson 16.78, -3.01 Timbuktu

Alphadi (1957-)

4140 Jim Reader 7.58, -1.93 Techiman, Ghana

Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (1943-)

96 Richard Smith -8.05, -34.90 Recife, Brazil

José Onuchic (????-)

610 Tom Howell -3.85, -32.42 Fernando de Noronha

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

Nearest player was Richard Smith: José Onuchic (????-) in Recife, Brazil: 96km.

Clue to person with closest guess: We were born in what are now the two most populous cities in our native country.

[Me] José Onuchic was born in São Paulo, Brazil's most populous city. Rosaly was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second most populous city. I included 'what are now' to cover myself in case the situation was different back in th 1950s.

With four players now searching in South America, will the other four realise they are on the wrong continent? If they wish to persist in believing that Kendo is Africa, they are going to have to believe that either Bob or Ian got the clue.

I was relieved that Tom wasn't closest. His suggested location for Rosaly, namely an archipelago of islands of volcanic origin, deserves to have been right, but alas for him it wasn't. Will any of the other players notice that he has found someone who is a perfect fit for the clues so far? And if so, will they or he look carefully at the R6 clue and ask themselves "Why did Dane bother specifying 'English'?" This round's guesses did very little to reduce the area in which Rosaly could be hiding, so if other players do realise that Tom has identified Kendo, I shall have to find a way of making them ask that question.

[Adam Huby] One of those clues that probably helps a lot for whoever received it, and anyone who can deduce who that was. Which, by the end of this, you'll see that I think I have:

Apart from myself, I believe I can definitely eliminate Brendan (Josef Mengele born in Günzburg), Chris (Philip Emeagwali born in Akure), Jim (Jocelyn Bell-Burnell born in Lurgan) and Ian (Alphadi born in Timbuktu which, despite being one of only two cities in Mali that I believe I recognise, is nowhere near one of its two largest cities).

[Me] The first of several things that Adam does right this round: he realises that the clue can be used to rule out many of the players, one more than I had realised, given that I failed to look at where Timbuktu ranked in Malian city populations.

[Adam Huby] Which seems to leave only three people who might have received the latest clue, of whom only one was in Africa, my previous strong favourite for where the kendo is likely to be, while the other two were in, or a little distance off the coast of, north-east Brazil. Realistically, given Richard's location, it's extremely unlikely to have been Tom, so I seem to be left with two options for the kendo: Born in Birmingham and hiding in the south-east of Ivory Coast or the south-west corner of Ghana, or born in Rio De Janeiro and hiding in north-east South America.

Given the quite small size of the area where the kendo could be if Bob is closest, I can track back through the previous rounds and be certain about who would have received each clue, and it does suggest some serious problems with this theory. Firstly, Richard would have received the round 6 clue - but that clue refers to where that round's nominee was born, and George Efstathiou's wikipedia entry doesn't state that, while Richard followed up that round by jumping across the Atlantic. Also, Brendan would have received the round 1, 3 and 4 clues, but ever since then he's been drifting further and further away from west Africa, which hardly seems consistent with that being the kendo's location.

So I'm now pretty certain that I've been on a wild goose chase for several rounds and I'm looking for a Brazilian hiding in South America. I recall that in the last round I had managed to come up with a (somewhat) convincing reason why I didn't think he could be there, so I need to do some serious revisionism.

[Me] The second thing he does right: realise that he has to go back and reexamine his previous beliefs. As a player I know how easy it is for an assumption made in an early round to be treated as a fact later in the game.

[Adam Huby] Round 6 would have almost certainly been Tom (there may be a small chance it was Chris, but since he subsequently returned to Africa that really doesn't look likely). George Bertulani was born in Brazil, so that's consistent with looking for someone born in Rio. He works in the U.S., so we seem to be after someone else working there, but with one big difference (a female?).

Round 5 could only have been Brendan, which would largely explain why he's had no desire to return to Africa. A Brazilian certainly fits with having a different native language to Napoleon, which actually appears to have been Corsican, though he also spoke Italian and French. I think this was the major adverse point that I had last round, but if I can find someone who fits the other criteria but spent some time in a country that speaks one of those two languages before moving to the States, then I might be well on the way.

[Me] At this stage he makes a mistake because he's ignored the possibility that the language that Kendo and Napoleon had in common was one that neither of them spoke originally. Fortunately for him this doesn't derail his subsequent logic once he's done a third thing right, namely looking to see if someone else has already done all the hard work of identifying the Kendo.

[Adam Huby] So at this point I decided I might as well short-cut to leech off Tom and compare Rosaly Lopes to the clues from earlier rounds and, as far as I can see, she fits everything: Female; born in Rio; works in the U.S.; was a Visiting Researcher at the Vesuvius Observatory so probably conversant with Italian; has an astronomy degree, which Henry Cavendish also had some interest in, and worked at the Greenwich Royal Observatory, whose instruments were assessed by Cavendish; born in 1957, which is within 20 to 30 years of Edison's death; wrote a thesis on Martian volcanoes, while Hooke identified the rotation of Mars.

So I've no idea how much work he put in to find her, but I'm very happy that Rosaly Lopes is extremely likely to be the kendo. The area where she seems to be hiding is also closer to Nutbush than Victoria Falls, which is also good as Tina Turner definitely fits the first clue, while I was always dubious about David Livingstone.

[Me] Another misstep, but it fails to thwart the fourth correct step, namely spotting the clue hidden in the R6 clue.

[Adam Huby] And now, after taking on board the round 6 clue about the English wikipedia entry, I am pretty confident about where she is, as well.

[Me] It would be interesting to know why Chris didn't have Vic-Enn-Tim-Nia-Sai-Sal-Rec on his list. Maybe rereading his comments in early rounds might provide the answer.

[Chris Hibbert] All paths are consistent with Turn 1. Robert Hooke and LL Helmuth investigated in a number of areas, so no help. T3 tells me he/she was born in 1951-1961. I will eventually learn that Cavendish or Neveu dealt with a location of interest to Kendo.

I'm going to rule out Reinhard Genzel from turn 5. No one is guessing German speakers.

Both Richard and Tom (who were my remaining candidates for Turn 6) have chosen Brazilians for Turn 7. That leaves me with

Cavendish is more believable than Neveu for the Turn 4 clue. There's almost no land area in Nut-Get-Tim-Nia-Kor-Sal-Fer.

So if it's Nut-Get-Tim-Nia-Kor-Sal-Rec, I'm looking for someone born in Rio. Lopes seems to match the clues.

[Me] Chris also successfully leeches off Tom, but apparently fails to spot the clue hidden in the R6 clue.

[Ian D Wilson] Now I'm totally and utterly confused. So here is a random guess.

[Jim Reader] Thanks for sending the GPS files. I'm not sure how much they will help, given the continuing divergence of players between West Africa and Eastern Brazil, which makes me wonder about Tom's guess this time with an island in the South Atlantic. However, lets see what mistakes I can induce with the maps.

Round One - the clue is pretty clear that Kendo has a science career unlike the nearest guess. Based on the above, I think that would make Brendan (David Livingstone at Victoria Falls), Ian Wilson in Prussia with a Lt. General or Richard with Tina Turner in the Nutbush City Limits. As I think David Livingstone had some scientific background, more likely to be Ian (Marbot was a military man) and Anna Mae Bullock was a singer.

Round Two - I think the closest person was probably Bob Pitman with Robert Hooke. Of course, Robert Hooke was a polymath who studied loads including

Physics, studying the gas law(s) with Boyle, Optics and light refraction, Barometry and elasticity

The other possibility would be Chris Hibbert with Becky Smethurst in Oxford who is a modern day astrophysicist and astronomer.

Round Three - I think Brendan is closest with Thomas Edison. This would mean Kendo either died between 1817 and 1827 or was born between 1951 and 1961. Adam is another possibility which would mean Kendo died between 1703 and 1713 or was born between 1824 and 1834.

Round Four - Again, I think Brendan is closest, although his guess is slightly out of the age range above. Henry Cavendish was an English Chemist and Physicist who discovered Hydrogen. His main work was chemistry and physics (gravity) but he also studied electricity and had an interest in astrophysics / astronomy. He studied at Cambridge and London.

Richard with Sylvaine Neveu is another possibility, although Neveu is more modern; her scientific background is chemistry, particularly the nano-structures of silica.

Adam: Lawrence Krauss, Canadian Physicist and Cosmologist, born in NY, now retired who worked in Arizona, Yale and Case Western. Family was Jewish. Not much on languages, but I guess he speaks English, suggesting Kendo is a non-native English speaker

Chris Hibbert: Joseph Banks, English Naturalist and Botanist (died 1820) who travelled extensively (Brazil, Tahiti, Canada, Australia, NZ). Again, probably an English speaker.

Brendan: Napoleon Bonaparte in St. Helena - French speaker but looks too far south.

Round Six - Finally some guesses across the Atlantic. However, not so easy to zone in on a location.

Tom: Carlos Bertulani, Brazilian American Physicist, born in Brazil (Portuguese), studied in Germany and now in US.

Richard: George Efstathiou, English astrophysicist and cosmologist - not much family background to indicate he spoke another language

Adam: Jim Al-Khalili, Iraqi English theoretical physicist, mainly based in the UK.

Round Seven - Getting harder with good looking guesses on both continents. Still worried about the time period.

Tom: Rosaly Lopes off the coast of Brazil. Born in Rio, astronomist, planetary geologist. Would suggest Kendo came from Sao Paolo

Richard Smith - (I think Tom's guess is closer) but Jose Onuchic was born in Sao Paolo (Kendo from Rio). Physicist and electrical engineer.

Adam (still in West Africa) - Chryssa Kouveliotou, Greek Astrophysicist retired from NASA. No indication where she was born.

OK, I think I'm looking for a Brazilian Scientist, born in Rio between 1951 and 1961.

[Me] Jim successfully deduces that he's looking for a Brazilian scientist born in Rio between 1951 and 1961, but even though he's already established that Tom's R7 guess fits the bill, he opts for a different one. Somewhat puzzingly he stays close to Africa even though the logic that led to the Brazilian scientist was based on the most recent clues going to players in South America.

[Richard Smith] For my latest guess I'll go for Marcia Barbosa at Maceió, Brazil

It's always tempting to head off somewhere completely different after being nearest, but not this time.

[Me] Richard also fails to spot that Tom had handed him the Kendo's identity on a plate, instead selecting yet another Brazilian scientist born in Rio between 1951 and 1961, though as far as this game is concerned her date of birth is unknown as it isn't (currently at least) in her English Wikipedia entry.

[Tom Howell] I see no reason to change my Kendo guess from last time: Rosaly Lopes. The only clue I'm the least bit shaky on is the round two clue. As for hiding place, ...

I read the round six clue as meaning, her hiding place IS on her page in another language. Portuguese seems the most reasonable language, and I find one place mentioned (without me knowing any Portuguese) that is not on her English language Wikipedia page, and is in Richard's current neighborhood.

0 Adam Huby -8.24, -35.75 Bezerros, Brazil

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

279 Bob Pitman -5.78, -35.20 Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

Thaisa Storchi Bergmann (????-)

4638 Brendan Whyte 6.46, 3.38 Lagos, Nigeria

Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961)

3025 Chris Hibbert 2.82, -60.67 Boa Vista, Roraima

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

7583 Ian D Wilson 53.85, -1.81 Gilstead, West Yorkshire

Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001)

4947 Jim Reader 32.65, -16.92 Funchal, Madeira

Marcelo Gleiser (1959-)

158 Richard Smith -9.67, -35.73 Maceió, Brazil

Marcia Barbosa (????-)

0 Tom Howell -8.24, -35.75 Bezerros, Brazil

Rosaly Lopes (1957-)

Once I'd read Tom's orders, I knew the game was coming to an end. That prompted me to remember that I'd never got round to learning how to fix the latitude and longitude on the Portuguese Wikipedia entry for Bezerros. It proved to be less trivial a task than I had expected. Or rather although it was a trivial task, I had to understand rather more about the way the entry was structured (it was including another file, which was where the erroneous coordinates were) than I had expected. Once I'd finished, I noticed that I had left my footprint on the entry for any player to see. I consoled myself with the thought that if they had found their way to the Portuguese entry for Bezerros, they had already solved the puzzle anyway.

Three more Wikipedia edits beckon once I've got this issue out of the way. One will invalidate part of the R6 clue. The other two will eliminate the major flaw in Bob's and Richard's R8 guesses, the dates of birth being available in the Portuguese Wikipedia entries. But where did they come from? I'm sure you've also seen 'citation needed' in Wikipedia articles as an indication that a fact needs verifying, but a quick look at the Portuguese entry for Marcia Barbosa didn't reveal any supporting evidence given for her birth details. Maybe closer examination will do so.

Entries this issue from just Adam Huby (AH), Brendan Whyte (BW) and Derek Wilson (DW), plus answers from Chris Dawe's program (CDp), from Steve Thomas's program (prg) to let us see what can be achieved if one is au fait with Scottish dialect words and obsolete Shakespearean and Spenserian spellings, and from me so that you can all play the extra game of 'beat the GM' (+1 for a shorter answer, -1 for a longer one).

When I'm checking your entries for validity, words tend to fall into at least six categories:

1) Ones I know exist and which I'm sure of the spelling of. I don't check these against the Collins word list.

2) Ones I know exist, but which I'm unsure of the spelling of. I check these but don't report them as a word I didn't recognise.

3) Ones I'm fairly sure exist. I also check these but don't report them as a word I wasn't sure of the existence of.

4) Ones I can well believe exist but which I do not recall ever encountering. Many agent nouns fall into this category. I check these and do report them as a word I wasn't sure of the existence of.

5) Ones that I have no reason to believe exist (most such words that have cropped up previously still fall into this category when they next occur!). I check these and report them as a word I didn't recognise.

6) Words that I initially ascribe to the previous category, only to discover that they are in fact in one of the first two.

AH: [5] RARE - RADE - RODE - RODED - RODDED - NODDED

BW: [5] RARE - RADE - RODE - RODED - RODDED - NODDED

CDp: [5] RARE - RADE - RODE - RODED - RODDED - NODDED

DW: [6] RARE - CARE - CORE - CODE - CODED - CODDED - NODDED

me: [5] rare - rore - rode - roded - rodded - nodded

prg: [5] rare - rade - rode - roded - rodded - nodded

(and 1 other solution)

We had 'cod' (as a verb), 'rade' and 'rore' previously in issues 164, 185 and 25 respectively.

* RORE: in addition to the Collins definition, namely a former spelling of ROAR, this is also present as an obsolete verb with various meanings including 'to stir up'.

Provided one discovered one or other of the obsolete words or spellings, this was easy and gave the only minimum-length solution of the round.

AH: [5] LIKE - LINE - LINK - RINK - RINKS - DRINKS

BW: [8] LIKE - LAKE - LEAK - PEAK - PENK - PINK - PRINK - DRINK - DRINKS

CDp: [5] LIKE - LINE - LINK - RINK - DRINK - DRINKS

DW: [5] LIKE - LINE - LINK - RINK - DRINK - DRINKS

me: [5] like - line - link - links - rinks - drinks

prg: [5] like - likes - lines - links - rinks - drinks

(and 36 other solutions)

* AMIS: this is present not as a headword but as an ongoing alternative spelling of AMICE.

Finding a 5-step solution was fairly easy, though Brendan would presumably disagree. Convincing myself that I wasn't overlooking a 4-step one required me to check for the existence of various words that looked implausible to me.

AH: [7] BEAM - SEAM - MASE - VASE - VISE - AVISE - ADVISE - ADVISED

BW: [8] BEAM - BEAT - BATE - BASE - BISE - VISE - AVISE - ADVISE - ADVISED

CDp: [7] BEAM - BEAR - SEAR - ARSE - ARISE - AVISE - ADVISE - ADVISED

DW: [9] BEAM - BEAN - BANE - VANE - VINE - VISE - VISED - VISAED - ADVISE -

ADVISED

me: [7] beam - seam - mase - mise - vise - avise - advise - advised

prg: [7] beam - seam - ames - amies - amises - avises - advises - advised

(and 17 other solutions)

We had 'ame', 'bise', 'mise', 'visa' (as a verb) and 'vise' (as a noun) previously in issues 163, 130, 215, 165 and 165 respectively.

My first thought was "Why didn't I leave myself a clue when I set this?" Fortunately it didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that I needed to check for the existence of AVISE. Then yet more implausible words (e.g. MIBE and MABE) had to be checked for to confirm there wasn't a 6-step solution.

AH: [7] TOSS - BOSS - BOOS - BOONS - BOSONS - BASONS - BACONS - BEACONS

BW: [7] TOSS - TONS - TANS - BANS - BANCS - BANCOS - BACONS - BEACONS

CDp: [7] TOSS - TORS - CORS - CORNS - ACORNS - RACONS - BACONS - BEACONS

DW: [8] TOSS - BOSS - BASS - BANS - BANC - BANCO - BACON - BEACON - BEACONS

me: [7] toss - tons - toons - boons - borons - barons - bacons - beacons

prg: [7] toss - toses - noses - nodes - anodes - acnodes - deacons - beacons

(and 34 other solutions)

We had 'banc', 'cor' and 'tose' previously in issues 57, 165 and 166 respectively.

acnode : an isolated point not upon a curve, but whose coordinates satisfy the equation of the curve so that it is considered as belonging to the curve

* BASON: in addition to being given as an ongoing alternative spelling of BASIN, this is also present as a noun with meaning 'A bench with a plate of iron or stone flag fitted in it, and a little fire underneath, on which the first part of the felting process was performed' and a verb with meaning 'To harden the felt on the bason in hat-making'.

The use of some ridiculous plurals made this not too difficult, but at two steps longer than the theoretical minimum there was the worry that I might have missed a shorter solution.

1st Adam Huby 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20 (0)

N/A Chris Dawe (prg) 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20 (0)

2nd Brendan Whyte 5 + 2 + 3 + 5 = 15 (-2)

3rd Derek Wilson 3 + 5 + 2 + 3 = 13 (-3)

Another victory for Adam, but at least this time the GM manages to equal his performance.

At each step you may replace a single letter, rearrange the letters, insert a single letter, or remove a single letter (but the resulting word must contain at least three letters). All intervening steps must be valid words. I shall be using the Collins Scrabble Word Checker as the primary source to check any words I do not recognise. But because that source is now suffering expurgation of offensive words, I shall use the Chambers Word Wizard as a secondary source. Any word that it is accepted by at least one of these sources is valid here. Any word that it rejected by both is not valid here. Not as nice and simple as it used to be before the expurgation started.

If any of you would like to be sent a reminder for the Word Puzzle whenever I don't have orders from you, please let me know.