"Wish You Were Here?"

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• Grauniad: Military Book Club Monthly - excerpt from the April mailing list
  From the Adler publishing house, two new reference books for WWII German Military history enthusiasts: The first is an autobiographical account by Fr.Else Klempt, "Carriage Return: The Retreat From Poland - A Stenographers Account". It covers the period from the decimation of the 101st Schutzpolizei Battalion, where she served in the procurement & supplies section, at the battle of Poznan in late 1944 and Klempt's subsequent attachment to the HQ of SS Highway & Road Repair Directorate. A harrowing tale of the retreat with her unit to Berlin, she finally abandoned her typewriter only as Russian troops closed in on the ruins of the Chancellory and the Fuhrer Begleit Unit fought a desperate holding action to allow the typing pool to escape. 290 pp, 14 B&W photographs.
  The other new offering this month is volume 11 in the well received "Uniforms of The Reich" series: Volume 11, "Ski Troops of the Sicherheitsdienst in Italy 1944-45" 322 pp, 40 colour plates
• gil: Unbridled, brooding wrath instantly clouded normally-equable but easily-roused Peregrine's handsome, tanned, noble brow as pretty, slim, vivacious, always-elegant Euridice carefully and circumspectly entered the rather stark, yet somehow comfortable and cosy drawing room of wise, old, comical, mischievous Uncle Jocelyn's well-appointed, recently-restored, tidy, ancient Tudor country house in beautiful, strangely exciting, yet flat, rural Gloucestershire. The impromptu, but very welcome, jolly house-party had immediately and fortuitously given the once-friendly, recently-hostile, well-heeled, rather tempestuous Halliday family a timely, almost tardy, one might truthfully and appropriately say "much-overdue", opportunity finally, temperately and fairly to clear up some of the fierce, unjust, threatening, disruptive, long-standing rivalries between sagacious, greying, limping, crippled, dying Uncle Jocelyn's unruly, dissipated, unhappy, driven and irascible heirs. In the recent, not-so-recent, and distant past, delicate, moderate, well-intentioned, planned negotiations between the warring, spoilt, yet determined parties had broken down suddenly, though irresolutely and inconclusively when the irritated, be-devilled, grouchy and selfish participants sadly, eventually and irrevocably ran out of suitable, well-understood, appropriate adjectives and apposite, piquant, pithy adverbs at an unusually early, yet predictably inconvenient stage.
• Simons Mith: I can't compete with you lot, but ....
  Ug! Agh! Ug agg agg urrghh! Arg. Grr! Ug ugug ag ugh! Agag ug urgh! Urgh ag ag ag ag ag! Argh argh urrgh ag urrgh argh ag ag. Ag ug ag ag ug urgh ag. Ag urgh ug ug ugag agug argh ug ug! Grr! Argh! Ug. Ug ug. Ug ag ug. Ag ag ag urgh ag ag. Ag ug ag urgh ug ug ug. Ug ug urgh! Ug ug ug! Agag ag ug! Ug ag ag urgh ug ug ug. Agh agh argh urgh ug ug. Ug ag ag. Ag urgh ug! Ug ug ug urgh ug. Ag agurgh ug ug ag agagug. Ag ug urgh ug ag. Ag ag urgh ug ug. Ug! Ugh urgh ugh ugh ag. Ug urgh! Ugugag! Urgh grr ug ug! Ag urgh urgh ag grr ug. Ug. Ug ug.
  Thag the Caveman, an Autobiography, Collins hardback, £12.95.
• Bill: Bravo! The classics are always the best.
• Phil: [SM] sorry to split hairs, but shouldn't the third last line be "Ag argh urgh ag grr ug."? Otherwise the irony of his despair could be slightly misconstrued.
• Phil: I meant third last sentence, obviously. Apols.
• Simons Mith: Yes, the transcription error was mine. Sorry all.
• Martha Farquar: It was the cosmonauts on Mir who encountered them first. They were only too surprised when the Magtuwops seeped into their craft and began sucking their brains out through their eyes, with bony straws on the end of their fingers. Later their pulped bodies would be used as ammunition. They were the lucky ones.
• Grauniad: Lady Penelope suddenly stepped into the moonlight, her perfect form trembling beneath her diaphanous night-dress. Parker wet his lips without being aware of having done so. He stood rooted to the spot, thinking unclean thoughts. "Yes m'lady?" he enquired.
• gil: [Grauniad] That was excellent. I couldn't see the strings at all.
• Bill: [MF/Grauniad]Didn't they make movies out of those books?
• Projoy: All the above are fantastic, but I wonder if anyone thinks it's time to change the theme. After all, most of us have but one truly dreadful novel in us...
• Fat German: ..unless we're Jeffrey Archer.
• Albert: Speaking of which...
  
  Her heart moaned softly for him as he turned away to go to the office; his socks and underpants already on.
  "Don't go darling," she said, her lungs pouding for air as he lay on top of her.
  "I have to," he replied. "I don't want to be late. The ambassador is expecting me and you know what he's like!"
  "I do, I do."
  She did because she was already having an affair with him, but he meant nothing. He was like pate on toast to Richard's foie gras and only served a need; an ache called desire that had to be filled or she felt that she would burst through a lingering emptiness. Richard left her; it was 8:15 and the dishes needed doing.
• Projoy: May I suggest a new form for a short while? If people do feel the novels are a richer vein, we could always return to them later. Agony - your problems addressed by the world's leading figures Dear Confused,
  Your troubles are only just beginning, Im afraid. I hope you realise that the problem you describe in your letter will soon make you a criminal. To practise that sort of thing is utterly unacceptable in this day and age to most people in Middle England, and rightly so. And to have done it with that kind of person can only cause revulsion in most right-thinking people.
  I read your half-hearted excuses for your condition with some interest - but it's no good blaming your father for your drugs habit. The fact that he's not there half the time should inculcate you with some sort of self-reliance, shouldn't it. And fathers are busy people, in any case. It's not as if you have a single mother, is it, boy?
  The only solution I can offer is for you to observe a strict curfew henceforth. in bed by 8.30, or, failing that check yourself in to the local cop shop. I have lots of friends there. Just tell them I sent you. Anyway, I won't waste any more of my valuable time. I've got a journalist to see now, to explain where that leak came from.
  Your loving father
  Jack Straw
  PS. Never go through my briefcase again!
• Projoy: Oops. Sorry for shouting.
• Dan: Still on the novels front, I honestly don't think I could contribute anything better than this.
• Dunx: shakes head sadly
• Fat German: [Dan] That is one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had.
• Albert: The problem with Post-Modern novels is that you sometimes can't tell whether they are taking the piss, or are just shite. Whatever, I'm dumbstruck. There's a novel in all of us. I hope that author finds one.
• Simons Mith: ['Saint'] Ow. That hurt. And I could only bring myself to read bits of it.
  Still, on with the game:
  Once upon a time there was a pulchritudinous non-gender specific royal person, who lived in a white stone castle that was open to the public seven days a week between the months of May to September with a morally-challenged step-relative and three step-siblings of an alternative aesthetic persuasion.
  One day, the non-gender specific royal person was walking in the forest when he or she met an environmentally-responsible woodcutter who was, through no fault of his or her own, in financial difficulties.
  'Hello, woodcutter,' said the pulchritudinous non-gender specific royal person, politely.
  'Hello, your Highness,' said the environmentally-responsible woodcutter, 'isn't it a lovely day?' but then he or she sighed.
  'Yes,' said the pulchritudinous non-gender specific royal person, 'it is a lovely day, but you seem to be sad about something.'
  And so the long day wears on - I'm not transcribing any more. Naturally this book was panned by all right-thinking critics for being grossly politically incorrect, and I'm sure I needn't explain why...
• :
• A random HTML corrector: *boing* Did that work?
• gil: Gad! That Saint thing was truly awful. The fragment Dan gave us earlier in this conf. was awful, too, but it was delightfully awful, not mind-grindingly awful like this one.

  I rather liked Projoy's suggestion, so here goes (on a wing and a prayer):

  Dear Holly of Leicester,
  Don't worry. At a certain age, this happens to every girl as she starts to turn into a woman. The age varies, and you mustn't worry that you are earlier than your classmates. Every grown-up woman can talk in "Full Duplex" as we call it. When you are a child, you talk in Simplex. That is, you talk, but you don't hear the reply. Many little boys stay like this until they are 70 or so. As a girl grows, she begins to talk in Half Duplex, where she can talk or listen, but can't do both at the same time. Some boys eventually achieve this level of facility. But only a mature woman can talk and listen simultaneously, and that is what is happening to you, Holly.
  Uncle Bill Gates

• Raak: Dear "Vlad":

  What you need most of all is to accept yourself as you are. There's nothing wrong with impaling people on stakes and drinking their blood, as long as they're consenting, and if sleeping in an earth-filled coffin turns you on, good for you! I appreciate that in a Transylvanian backwater you may find difficulty in meeting compatible people, and that your frustration has driven you to the acts you describe, but if you were to move to a more populous and cosmopolitan environment such as London or Paris, there are certain subcultures there where you will find no shortage of willing volunteers to bare their throats for your fangs.

  -- Irma

• gil: Dear Robin,

  Many people have to cope with major disfigurements. I think it's very selfish of you to worry about resembling a garden gnome. As you say, you've not been short of female companionship, and your job sounds very exciting, though I should stay well clear of that Clinton fellow you've been spending time with. He sounds like a womaniser and a bit of a fibber, if you ask me.

  Uncle William

• Dan:
  Dear Bruce,

  No, you are not a freak, but the best way to convince yourself of that is to find a way to use your unique nature to benefit society. Admittedly, it's difficult to imagine how to do that with a fondness for sleek tights and hood, a bat-fetish, an underage boyfriend and an insatiable craving to tie people up and discipline them, but if you put your mind to it I'm sure you'll find a way.

  Good luck, and always remember that you are very special.

• JLE (well, it had to be someone): ...and as this game seems more than a little moribund I'll consider finishing it off with a move in the original brief of the game, that of a greetings postcard from holiday, with the move which I think ought to have been the winning move: a simple Weather is here. Wish you were nice.

• JLE (well, it had to be someone) (Winner's Comments): Mercy killing - exactly two moves in the last three weeks.
• Projoy: Wel,, I'm sorry to see it go, but I suppose its time had come. Applause, I think, to Raak and gil for some of the funniest and most intelligent moves played on this or any other server.
• Dan: [Projoy] Wholehearted agreement on that last, I'm rather awed by those two. And it's not so much that the game had died as that the latest theme didn't seem to inspire people.

  For the record, I believe it's traditional for one of the game's actual players to decide that its time has come, not a non-participant who just wants to start another game -- classic lurker victory. But in this case it might as well stand.

• gil: I think Raak's and my fondness and (modestly) facility for the game demonstrates the mind-warping properties of an Edinburgh education, but most themes are rapidly worn out if they have a clear motive and are not in any way interactive with other players. The lack of a clear or, at any rate, consistent motive in MC games, and the loose interactivity (particularly of reverse games), accounts, I suppose, for their relative longevity.
• CdM: Please chisel my name on to the list of Raak-and-gil-admirers. Excellent game -- I wish I'd found the time to make more contributions...
• JLE: Indeed. Sorry for lurking there, but when no moves have come for a week... I vote that, if there is to be victory in this game, Raak and gil should share it.
• Raak: I agree it was time to put this one down. Great fun while it lasted.
• shahryar: hello i am single boy and i am need to frined
• geebs: What does a man have to do to get a drink around here?
• penelope: Hi geebs. You just walk right up to the bar and order whatever you'd like. Don't forget, you can pay our friendly barman using your London Underground carnet tickets (for soft drinks only) or for alcoholic drinks, use silver podumes. And a word of advice. Try not to get chatting to the guy with the long hair. He'll be tapping you for cider all night.
• Yer Mom: *pokes tongue out*

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