Fresh breeze blows from the North Sea
Skegness, so bracing!
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson
Janet was the youngest Jackson sibling, and the one who managed to escape the overbearing control of their abusive father. This album promised social commentary and there are little interstitial stings to introduce the tracks, but they don’t really go much further than saying that racial strife and poverty are bad, and maybe education is a good thing, m-kay?
After a few of these tracks, it feels like she got bored with the politics and declared “Got the point? Let’s dance!” before kicking into some more uptempo dance tracks and smoochy ballads. The music is mostly that 80s over-compressed bass with random stabs that gets very wearing after a while and hasn’t aged well. It did make me want to listen to the Reynolds Girls though.
On the whole, a bit better than I expected and at least she seems to be the non-problematic Jackson unlike certain others we could mention.
Wardrobe-malfunction-tastic!
Monday, October 12, 2026
Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys
Widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time, this feels like an intimidating listen. Is it possible for an album to be too polished? Certainly, the best known tracks on this are deeply embedded in my brain and still sound as perfect as they ever did. However, there’s something about this that doesn’t sit quite right with me on repeated listens.
Perhaps it’s the opening track “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” which is, when you boil it down, just about a horny teenager wishing that he could have sex with his girlfriend. Similarly, “Sloop John B” is someone singing about being home sick on a boat in the Caribbean, not a typical subject for a pop song.
I find myself coming back to the instrumental tracks “Let’s Go Away For A While” and the title track as being the most enigmatic and interesting, as well as the final song “Caroline No” which ends with dogs barking and a train steaming off into the night.
Four stars, but not quite five for me.
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Furnace XXI
Another excellent weekend of gaming at the Garrison Hotel, superbly organised by Dom, Elaine and Graham as usual. After the usual introduction from Graham we found our way to our assigned tables following the spreadsheet of doom. 
Slot 1 - Cørk Börd - Beneath Gotland’s Skin
I was eager to give this scenario another outing after running it at UK Games Expo and had four investigators willing to face the gloom. The character generation is an important part of this, and working from the archetypes gave us a good mix of backgrounds and bonuses, which helped make sense of the case. Lots of good roleplaying, leaning into personal baggage and a final grim ending on a cold, rainy Gotland night. Enigmatic gazes into the distance to Assaf, Amelia, Jamie and Michael!
Slot 2 - X Crawl Classics - Tropical Cataclysm
A complete change of pace with competitive televised dungeon crawling GM’d by Debbie with traps, mutant crocodile men, moving platforms and a surprisingly deadly number of snakes. We made it through a whole two and half rooms gaining some drinks vouchers and a bit of fame before a bad series of rolls saw half the party falling victim to the aforementioned snakes. Ace fun!
Slot 4 - Savage Worlds - Curse of Wilson’s Quarry
Unfortunately the game I’d originally been assigned in this slot fell through, but I was able to quickly jump into another game with Debbie, and another complete contrast with this kids on bikes setting for Savage Worlds with a large cast of characters given equal time as we investigated a quarry with a deadly and tragic past. Great tactical use of adventure cards and bennies to bring the adventure to a successful conclusion with much hilarity and characters helping each other.
Raffle
A very special guest to draw the raffle - the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, better known as Furnace's very own Andy Sangar!
Slot 5 - Invincible - When Freedom Falls
This was a unique twist on the superhero genre, taking characters based on the Teen Titans into a fantasy setting. GM Declan had produced some extremely high quality character sheets, player aids and a very colourful battle map for a classic slugfest. It looked as if it was just going to be me and Simon playing, but we recruited a couple of waifs and strays to round out the team. Hot headed superhero flirting, wild accusations being thrown around, and a sinister plot to mind control the city council. A great ending to the weekend!
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell
It’s a sign of a good cover version, that many people at the time didn’t realise that Tainted Love was originally a northern soul classic that had been transformed into an electro-pop banger by Soft Cell. It adds a whole new dimension to the song whilst retaining the essential truth of the original.
In contrast to some other electronic pioneers, Soft Cell never pretended to be icy robots, but instead range about the messy, sleazy, sexy, sad human experience of life in the big city. For me the best song on the album is Say Hello, Wave Goodbye which completely captures the feeling of a relationship coming to an inevitable end.
Some of the tracks on this album are a little scrappy, but it always feels like keyboard player Dave Ball was experimenting and pushing on to find the right backing for Marc Almond’s voice to soar.
Sex-dwarf-tastic!
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