Dappled, First Blossom

Beneath the old oak
Basking in dappled sunlight
Their first love blossoms

Bright Flight by Silver Jews

The only problem with an ambiguous and/or jokey band name is the expectations that it sets. For this album I thought it might be some sort of Weird Al style polka or maybe arty New York hip-hop, but it actually turned out to be a low key country album recorded in Nashville.

It took a song or two to get its hooks into me, but lines like “A kitten from Great Britain sleeps behind the drapes” and the idea of moving to Nashville to make a living out of writing sad songs and getting paid by the tear are strong images. I think this is the sort of album that will really repay repeated listens.

Finally, just to be on the safe side, I checked their Wikipedia page and front man David Berman is actually Jewish, so the band name is ok after all. Phew!

Mazel-tastic!

Horse Tail

I once cried over
A dead video game horse
Red Dead’s bitter twist

The Man Who by Travis

Hey 1001Albums! Can you recommend me a very specific sort of album? It should be post-Britpop, low energy and unthreatening. The sort of thing that a BBC 6 Music DJ could play on a loop while they nip out for a cup of tea and a smoke, and no one would notice or complain. It should also sound a bit like the Beatles ‘Across the Universe’ by way of Oasis, but not close enough to be accused of plagiarism.

The lyrics don’t need to be super clever or original but there must be one absolute ear-worm of a hit single that would go down perfectly on a wet afternoon at Glastonbury when everyone is hung over and covered in mud. I want a guaranteed two stars or maybe three if I’m being charitable for some of the interesting twiddly bits in the background.

1001Albums: Have I got an album for you!

First Storm, Frog

Froglet finds her feet
Leaps on to a lily pad
To enjoy the storm

Like a Prayer by Madonna

Madonna may have started the 80s as a carefree material girl but as the decade closed, she was thinking about faith and family. The title track, and the accompanying video in particular, caused a huge fuss at the time, but looking back on this now shows that this is actually from the (small c) conservative viewpoint of someone raised in the catholic faith with all of the associated iconography.

The rest of the album has songs musing about Madonna’s mother and father, and one about the importance of her siblings, showing her to have maybe reached a settled place in her life. Musically, it’s pure pop with touches of soul and gospel, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of her 90’s reinvention with Ray of Light.

I would have given this four stars, but I’d forgotten just how toe-curlingly awful the final track Act of Contrition was. What was she thinking?

Madge-tastic!

Owlbear & Wizards Staff 2026

Leamington Spa in early September is always a glorious time of year, not least for the annual Owlbear & Wizard’s Staff convention, ably organised as always by Matt Broome. It benefits from a very friendly venue in St Patrick’s Irish Centre that overlooks the river and is in easy walking distance of local hotels and pubs, a good selection of games that all of the volunteer GMs put a lot of thought into, and some unique touches like the legendary lunch time samosas provided as part of the ticket price.

After a trouble free journey, (with many thanks to Susan for driving) and a swift half in the Cricketers Pub, I settled down for my first game of the weekend.

Cy-Borg : Johnny Bubonic

I think I prefer the various spin off Borg-like games to the original, especially Pirate Borg and Cy-Borg as they combine simple rules with a lot of setting specific flavour in the form of different character archetypes and random tables. In this scenario, our rag tag crew of heavily indebted hackers, nanomancers and corp killers were tasked with extracting an upstart punk star called Johnny Bubonic from the middle of a gig because reasons. They were paying us, so we didn’t ask too many questions. Unusually for this sort of setup, we actually spent a considerable amount of time scoping the venue and planning the heist, and it all went fine until a fumble meant that the flashbangs went off in the middle of the crowd with hilarious consequences. We recovered the situation with some judicious sniping, a knife fight with some irate kitchen staff and a pre-stolen getaway van on standby. Thanks to Sue Savage for running!

I wasn’t gaming on Friday night, so there was the usual delight of seeing much loved familiar faces at the Pug before a stealth curry organised by Orlanth Rex taking some of the admin hassle away from Matt. Yum. I was stuffed and called it a night after that.

MERP : Far Harad Ahoy!

Saturday’s game was a session of the famously convoluted Middle Earth Role Playing game, expertly GM’d by all round lovely guy Dave Patterson. The rules involve a D100 roll, adding in an offensive bonus, looking up the result on a table cross referencing weapon and armour type, then (more often than not) rolling on another table for a fumble or critical with a variety of entertaining outcomes - simple! We each had a couple of the tables to check results on and got into the swing of things quite quickly, making short work of the baddies. A particularly satisfying series of rolls saw my camel kicking a sand dragon in the face before a hobbit finished the job by shooting an arrow through both its ears. Sorry Dave!

AD&D : Temple of the Sea Demon

I’d not played AD&D for well over forty years but fortunately GM Mitch Hyde reminded us of the rules in all of their Gygaxian splendor. We planned a series of raids into the titular temple with military precision, fighting cultists and demons and escaping with enough treasure to pay for my unfortunately deceased halfling thief to be resurrected. Great old school nostalgic fun, including miniatures and Games Workshop dungeon floor plans!

Saturday night saw me and Susan enjoying our now traditional large G&T and noodles at Wagamamas and comparing war stories of our games so far, before I headed up to the White Horse for more beer and conversation with lovely people. I fear that we are all getting old though, and my voice was very croaky by the end of the night.

Tales of The Old West : The Devil Sent Me to Laredo

The final game of the weekend was one of my favourites of recent years, with Andy Horton presenting us with a classic spaghetti western style setup of a town where life seemed just too good, a mysterious Spanish mission, and an armoured train with a villainous governor and his white hatted goons. Much heroic gunplay and some lucky escapes for my disillusioned preacher turned gunslinger, and a great showdown at the end.

Roll on next year!