November 12th(Thurs.)
Shhh. I’m typing very quietly…..xmas plans are underway….and the little xmas elves (that’s me) are beavering away…
making the xmas booty in the dead of night….. It’s ok, there’s no one around, so I’ll continue at a normal volume.
Thing is you see, I’m discussing here a present that the family doesn’t know about yet.
I’ve always fancied having loads of board games in a closet (like the family in the ‘Royal Tenenbaums’).
People don’t play crappy boardgames any more like we did in the ’70’s. What is inherent in a boardgame is that all members face inwards in a circle, this is the normal dynamic for communication.
Circle for communication / facing forwards for lecture.
I’m not swayed by adverts for the ‘Wii’(the new video game console) and the like showing happy families sitting on the sofa laughing and smiling at each other. The reality is little Jimmy would much prefer it if grandad put the controller down and went back to watching the queen’s speech at xmas so he can use it alone for the next 6 hours. Try doing that with connect 4 or or Escape from Colditz and Jimmy would quickly grow bored! Ha ha!

Incidently there’s a new Wii game where by waving the controller around in simulation of the real thing you can get to play instruments like a guitar and drums.

The whole set up is a snip at 25,000yen(110 pounds) for the console and 5,000yen (20 pounds) for the game, all for the pleasure of waving your hands around like an imbicile ! (Maybe you can see where this rant is going…..) Of course if you were ever to happen upon a REAL guitar, you may be disconcerted to discover that 6 months of waving your hands about in simulation of actually learning the instrument don’t allow you to instantly pick up a guitar and play anything.
Alternatively you could put your 130 pounds in your pocket, head down to a 2nd hand store and lay the money down for 2 cheap old guitars and a tambourine, then step away from the telly and use the time for the family to learn to play actual music together…..sorry, in the words of Radiohead ‘for a minute there I lost myself’,(Radiohead currently do not use the Wii method of music creation, by the way).

That was a lengthy pre-amble to the news that this year I’m making a boardgame as a family present.
When we were in England we visited the ruins of a medieval priory called ‘Castle Acre’ and in one of the old barns at the back they had set up a load of medieval games that you could try. One of the games, was ‘Fox and Geese’ which in it’s time (from at least the 14th century) was very popular. Apparently it was Queen Victoria’s game of choice to boot.
I took away a hand-out that had the rules and a little board game and spent a quiet half hour mucking about playing it.
I was hooked.
Since it’s origins lie in the nordic ‘halatafl’ (the earliest reference of the game comes from the Icelandic ‘Grettis saga’) I’m making the board with knotwork decoration around the side on a piece of burn stained paulownia.
This wood is called ‘Kiri’ in Japanese which is a highly sort after furniture material due to it’s lightness and it’s resistance to humidity. I’ve also heard the scent of it is unloved by the clothes moth. These combine to make it the standard material for the ‘tansu’ that a women’s extremely expensive kimono are stored in.

I’ve often been very appreciative of it’s extreme balsa like lightness when moving our Japanese furniture around the house.
So far I’ve made the template for the knotwork corner design and made a full size mock up of the board layout on paper.

Also I bought some creamy white pebbles which will be the geese playing pieces. Each one is different and beg to be held in the hand. The fox will be a semi-precious stone from a vending machine…….What !?
All over Japan are these little capsule vending machines outside shops, beloved as much by businessmen returning home as kids. The contents are usually some animation character, or quirky keyholder. Japanese males often have these obsessive interest in one character that means nothing to anyone but a small circle of afficionados. Many a Japanese house has a room put by for the husband’s collection of ‘gundam’ models and comics or whatever.
Anyway, the one machine I like has small semi-precious stones in the capsule. I don’t mind shelling out the 100 yen (50p) now and then in the hope I get some time one of the lush reddy brown stones which would look just like a fox to set of my creamy white pebble geese. Alas ‘rose quartz’ and ‘pyrite’ have only come my way so far.
The game, you see, is for the fox to leap over, as in draughts, the geese , whereby ‘eating’ them and the geese to band together and box in the hungry fox.

Nice to be doing some creative work.