The long grey winter suddenly gave way with a spell of unexpectedly hot weather and Spring erupted like it it was trying to catch up for lost time. Which it was I suppose. Trees sprang into life like green fireworks, the grass and banks were dotted with flowers. The birds suddenly caught on and the dawn chorus ramped up the volume somewhat ( Read more... )

Paul Elliot, the man behind Zozer Games, who produced that "Hostile" RPG I've been enjoying of late has produced two small supplements to complement the main book. The first, "Pioneer Class Station", details a small 600 ton space station with a very characteristic set of 8 radially arranged fuel tanks extending from it's tower-like central core. It ( Read more... )

The Wife was out the other evening so had to fend for myself dinner-wise. Decided to do an old recipe I've not done for a long while. It's very simple and insanely tasty. Take a few onions, a few peppers (red, yellow or orange, preferably a mix), a couple of courgettes, an aubergine, a few large field mushrooms, 4-5 medium sized tomatoes and a ( Read more... )

That honking big starship I mentioned a little while back, it's called a Fitzgerald-class Freighter. The guy who runs the Starship Modeler website answered a few queries for me about it. He thinks it appears briefly in one of the Animated Series episodes. I think he's wrong there, I know most of the Animated Trek starships pretty well and they were ( Read more... )

Not quite fully on the ground yet, but definitely in the air, there was a day last week when I caught it, the soft touch of a warmer breeze, a smell of pale, fresh green. You can see it here and there, buds swelling on the trees and bushes, a scattering of flowers cautiously sticking their heads out, the faint fuzz of new leaves on the hawthorn, ( Read more... )

Srsly. Just look at it.


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Took a walk today at lunchtime, did my usual round and then broadened it, did a few more bookshops, a few more specialist shops, got me all nostalgic ( Read more... )

My Star Trek TOS phase continues. My birthday has produced LOOT! Loot in abundance! I have the Original Series AND the Animated Series on DVD, blueprints for the K-7 Space Station and Enterprise Bridge to add to the last lot, two different editions (no less) of the Star Trek Officer's Manual (an early second printing and a much later one) and the ( Read more... )

Been having a bit of a Star Trek - The Original Series spree of late. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, as part of my current urge to buy up Paul Kidd RPGs I picked up his "Lucanii Drift" sourcebook for "Starships and Spacemen" 2nd Edition, although actually it's for, as he puts it, "Any game that lets you Boldly Go". It is basically ( Read more... )

Yes, yes, I've been buying a lot of games, still got a bit of my Christmas bonus left, so I'm using it strategically. On games. As opposed to on food. Or rent. Or stupid stuff like that ( Read more... )