Plank's Wobbly

There was a flurry of late drop-outs and one happy addition of Adam H as even the venue changed and finally Ian, the Adams and myself (Sam) arranged ourselves around Martin's table, ready to clash swords. And that we did, firstly in the form of Martin's latest trick-taker, Skull Queen. No relation to Skull King, other than that both are trick-takers with a pirate veneer, and both feature cries of dismay. 

Skull Queen follows standard trick-taking rules in that it's a must-follow and highest card wins the trick. There's no trump suit. However, the trick winner will push their pirate up the plank, and the trick loser (lowest card of the led suit) will push their pirate down. Before play starts, you can place each of your pirates wherever you like on the plank though, so it's 'simply' a matter of looking at your cards and working out where you think you can get your pirates to: at the end of the round they'll score for their position on the plank - if they haven't fallen off entirely. 

The extra twists are that this highest/lowest dynamic doesn't just apply to the led suit, but any non-matching suits as well (as long as there is at least two of them - if not, they stay out on the table for the next trick). There's also a wild 13 and a wild zero, and 5s and 8s will cause trick losers/winners to move two spaces instead of one. Adam H was a perpetual victim of this as almost everyone took a turn dumping his pirates into the sea (in a flagrant disregard for how ships work, they can fall off either end). 

Martin led from the moment we left the harbour and never let up his iron grip. We tried to target him but couldn't work out how to manufacture his demise: Ian was on his coattails at first but faded in the last couple of rounds, as the rest of us were just grateful to have pirates left at all.

Martin 109
Sam 92
Adam T 89
Adam H 85
Ian 79

Next up was Bites. This is a kind of commodities game where we move ants along a track - any ant you like, players don't have a specific colour - taking them to their next matching-coloured food spot and picking up either the food token ahead or behind it. When there are no more matching spots ahead, the ant will move onto the anthill, which will define the value of all it's matching food pieces.

The catch is that if you want to up the value of apple, say, then you want to get the red ant to the anthill as quickly as possible - but moving the red ant generally doesn't let you pick up apples, as it lands on them. Mix in a couple of wrinkles - wine for set-collection, chocolate that allows you to grab two pieces instead of one - and you have Bites. 

It was interesting, but felt like a puzzle that never totally swam into focus, probably because although it officially plays 2-5 with the full complement turns were in short supply and decisions verged on the arbitrary-feeling, so much so that Adam T was mildly underwhelmed by his triumphant anting. We did manage to prevent Martin winning again though. 

Adam T 17
Ian 16
Adam H / Sam 15 each
Martin 14

We moved on to Whale Riders. Recalling Louie's push-the-pace strategy, I decided to race to the end, cash in a couple of contracts and buy my way to victory. This plan was harpooned when Ian picked up the free tile I needed and I decided there and then that Whale Riding is a silly occupation. 

Behind me there were plenty of busier whales going about their business in a more ambulatory fashion, and it served them well - mostly. Adam H made a rare miscalculation and the game ended literally one turn before he could rectify it. 

Martin 19

Adam T/Ian 17 each

Sam 16

Adam H 14

The Adams then left us for home, so our traditional closer of So Clover featured just three players. We played twice, and our opening game was so profoundly average I didn't take a picture: we scored 4 each. Ian still had beer in his glass so we set up for a second, and this time did much better: seeing off a couple of plausible red herrings to nail an 18/18 to finish! Ian's Gentrified for tame/region was nice. 

Hope to see more of you next week...

Miele Furore

 With various stalwarts of the Tuesday night gang absent and/or unable to host, Martin, Jo and I (Joe) rolled up to Anja and Steve's at just shy of 8pm, each of us armed with several high player count games. Louie was on a trampoline somewhere else, but joined us just as Puerto Banana hit the table, and seemed to grasp the inherent idiocy quite quickly. "Can I bid ten million bananas?", he asked. "Of course!", we replied. 

I don't think anyone bid ten million bananas, but I might have missed it - after a few rounds, Martin accidentally handed what he described as a pyrrhic victory to Jo, winning the round with 1234 bananas but owing Jo so many bananas they ultimately won the game. As pointed out by Steve, it's game that probably teaches us more than we'd really like to know about how financial systems work. Bananas!

A photo of Puerto Banana that really captures the fun...

Louie had about half an hour before bedtime, so he, Steve and I played Ticket to Ride Berlin, whilst Martin and Anja introduced Jo to Mille Fiore. Louie schooled me and Steve at TTR, springing the end game on us before we could complete our extra routes. Steve and I played Sea, Salt and Paper while Mille Fiore wrapped up; my win was convincing enough to make Steve peer at me from over his glasses in a withering way.

Joe 40

Steve 18

Mille Fiore finished with a squeaker, Martin edging past Anja by two points, with Jo only 30 points behind her:

Martin 205

Anja 203

Jo 173

Together at last, we five embarked on a pun-laden trick-taker that's not a trick-taker except it sort of is a trick-taker in the form of Jo's UKGE purchase, Power Vacuum. Jo had explained it to me in the car on the way over; "It's based on the death of Stalin, but with household appliances". Of course! The game was notable for the fine art and lavish production values, players demonstrating their points by building multi-part statues to themselves (in the event of a tie, the best statue wins). The reason it's not really a trick taker is that it's far more beneficial really to lose the trick, and get to manipulate the power each player is going to win at the end of the round (along with your bid on who's going to win and lose) than to win it. That part was the crux, and lead to some agonising moments. Anja, Jo and Steve I think all managed to score their bids at some point - I only managed a half bid a couple of times. It was a lot of fun, though quite befuddling at first, and according to Martin, perhaps having one or two too many good ideas crammed into it. 

Despite the game's exceptional table-presence I didn't take any photos because I'm a twit, so here's a couple of really quite odd Berger & Wyse cartoons we managed to get the Guardian to publish a few years ago...

We only managed four hands of Power Vacuum before the clock struck 11 and we felt we ought to leave our hosts in peace, so we called it: Anja took the win - was on the cusp of the winning prerequisite of 40 points:

Anja 37

Jo 31

Martin 25

Steve 23

Joe 20

It was a fun night - I really should have taken some photos.

Mothers of Incension

Just the four of us last night in the end: Joe, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam). Martin was justly cheery about his fresh new best-in-world ELO rating at online Tigris and Euphrates and when I said it's better than being number 1 shithead, he said "Well, I am that as well". He had a bag of new goodies with him and after some heavy sprue-popping, we began with Die Patin, the game of the raccoon mafia. 

 

yellow (Joe) green (Martin) red (Ian) and blue (me) start feeling the heat

Die Patin translates as The Godmother, but this is a Mario Puzo reference rather than any benevolent fairy. Over five rounds, we send our four raccoons out onto the board, either to patrol our own territory, setting up illegal card-playing 'back rooms' and extort loot - or to extend our turf across town, whereupon we start bumping into each other and having the gangster equivalent of a squabble. 

my fledgling hood

As well as the card games and protection rackets, the raccoons can also add to their presence on the street corners/manhole covers of the city - or remove an opponents' - and it's these 'rats', along with the presence of a raccoon, who determine who controls each area. At the end of each round players can add score markers to the board if they dominate in one of the ongoing objectives (biggest territory, most loot etc) and achieving them later is better than earlier: in round 1, they're only worth a point, but when round 5 comes around they're each worth 5 points (though you can only claim one per round). 

crazily, nobody currently occupies the city centre!

It was a game of punch and counter-punch. We more or less divided the board into two wars - Ian and I came to serial blows in the north whilst elsewhere Martin and Joe wrangled with each other so regularly that by the end of the game they'd basically swapped territories. Martin grabbed the loot objective and then cock-blocked it for the next few rounds, until I nabbed it in the finale. Both Ian and I suffered for our expansionist tendencies, as late-game Joe and Martin both made inroads into our territories - there's not much sense on holding on to what you have here, other than to stymie: the game, just like a capitalism-loving gangster boss, demands expansion. We ended bloodied but unbowed. Well, Martin was unbowed anyway. 

Martin 22
Sam 19
Joe 18
Ian 15

Joe and I felt it was maybe a little too brutal for the 90 minutes it took - a slugfest of underhanded moves and overhanded face slaps. But Ian and Martin disagreed. It's certainly an interesting game though, if you're up for a bruising brawl. 

Joe felt we needed some remedial ludic loving and so we decided to defuse some bombs. 

In our first mission we had to cut certain wires in sequential order, and we succeeded easily - although Joe (and in fairness, all of us) forgot about the specificities of the number 11. It was such a tiny (reversed) mistake though, I think you really need to peer close to see the asterisk. The game was still out on the table, so we thought Why Not defuse some more explosives. The next mission was interesting: Joe was new recruit Rhett Herring, and the standard game now had the additional challenge of Rhett always lying (with his number signifiers) about what numbers he had. For example if someone asked him if he had a six, Rhett will tell the truth about whether he does or not, but if he doesn't then he'll lie about what number wire it really was. 

Rhett's problem with the bomb disposal department is never made totally clear, but we accidentally cheated again and then lost anyway. 

It was already Clover o'Clock, so we set up for our standard evening-closer. "What is Fun Facts doing on the table??" Martin said, as though it was an actual steaming turd. All was forgiven when I explained we just needed the pens. 

Our first attempt was not a classic. There were some lovely clues in there (I enjoyed Joe's inferior for short/lake and my own Model T for garage/bone) but we were dealt some bastard Rhett Herrings and scored something pretty average. 

So, employing Bomb Busters logic, we went again. But as with Bomb Busters mark II, we couldn't pull off a success. Ian's Vogon for grate/poetry was a highlight (after I was reminded who the Vogons were) and both he and Joe harvested sixers, but Martin and I couldn't match them. This one was 19/24 - not awful, but not championship form either. 

And that was another GNN wrapped up and sent on its way. Hope to see you all next week. 

The Adams and Jo(e)s Show

This week's games night began at the earlier time of 7pm. I arrived a little late but by no means the last. In Joe's kitchen, the host was joined by Adam H, Adam T, Ian and Katy with Jo to follow. 

We chatted about the endless possibilities facing us tonight and Katy made an early pitch for Lords Of Vegas. Joe's battered and much loved copy was brought to the table. Adam T, meanwhile, had Ahoy as an option. He described it as Root Lite, which is a tough sell in these parts. Jo, having only played it two-player, was keen and Adam H decided that an asymmetric pirate game was preferable to the whims of a handful of dice.

As we set up, I was surprised that everyone’s knowledge of the game had moved on since I last played. For a start, building up was allowed (despite it not being a five player game) and the offsetting rule (where you can choose to reduce your winnings/losses in gambling) is no longer a thing. Apparently that rule was introduced by the publishers and wasn’t part of the original vision.

So, we began playing and in her very first turn Katy was able to build a 2-tile casino. Except that she built two adjacent 1-tile casinos. Had LoV strategy changed that much?

Lady Luck spent the evening tweaking our expectations and messing with our minds. Joe needed money so he contemplated gambling, except he’d need a 1-1 or 6-6 to win enough money. Instead he decided to reorganise a 2-tile casino. He rolled 1-1. In fact, the casinos were relatively generous tonight, and Katy even cleaned me out completely when she rolled double six in my casino.

This game was all about the silver casinos. Or lack thereof, as they stubbornly refused to pay out apart from twice at the very start of the game. Otherwise, the pivotal moments came with the reorganisation of existing casinos. Towards the end, a deal between Joe and Ian gave Ian enough money to reorganise a 6-tile casino. As it happened, Joe had a single die involved and it ended up winning!

And so did he.

Joe 32

Ian 26

Andrew 23 (but we don’t do tie-breakers for third place, said Katy)

Katy 23 (no money left)

After this, Ahoy was still in full flow so we, not having had enough dice for one evening, got out Kribbeln. Surely Joe’s luck couldn’t hold out.

Well, it did. The game was full of amazing scrapes that don’t seem amazing unless you were there and by the end, Joe was so far ahead with an astonishing 30 points, eclipsing Katy's very respectable 28 points.

Joe 30

Katy 28

Ian 17

Andrew 17

But Joe did specifically ask that I mention that it was the highest score on Kribbeln to date. I also pointed out to Joe that, when writing, people put a bar through the number 7 to better distinguish it from the number 1. But he wrote his in such a way that made them look like 9s.

Ahoy ended by now. I felt sad that I’d missed most of the epic undertaking, but Vegas is pretty distracting.

Jo 34

Adam H 30

Adam T 24

And then Katy and I left while Joe went to get the So Clover.

Thanks guys. A beautiful evening.

For Goodness' Saké

Like a rare planetary alignment, every year or so four increasingly aging board gamers meet to catch up and share news, ancient in-jokes and some dubious double-entendres.

I arrived at about 1.30, and Sam told me that Chris and Paul were running late, still picking their way through Bristol’s bank holiday traffic. We drank coffee and chatted while I idly looked at the packaging for Tokkuri Taking, a game that would be our first once we were all here.

The packaging promises a bacchanial party of sake with dinosaurs. In practice, we were playing cards to either represent a clay bottle full of sake (the tokkuri) or the amount of sake each player will drink.

You have to play cards which will empty a (or many) tokkuri(s) exactly. If you achieve this, you flip the tokkuri card, action any text that you may see and keep it as a point. Unless it is a Dummy card, in which case the card is removed from the game and everyone else chuckles at your bad luck.

In fact, the revelation of a dummy card remained funny until the end of the game. It was a nice little game but, as Chris pointed out, where were the dinosaurs?

Sam 20

Chris 13

Paul 4

Andrew 0

After this game, to commemorate the day, Chris took a selfie of the four of us and unfortunately demonstrated how age turns technology into a mystery. We all posed and smiled and, instead of taking a photo, Chris promptly turned his phone off.

Never mind, we got there in the end.

Then we chose our next game. At least, me, Sam and Paul did. Chris stayed at the kitchen table, declaring himself too tired to make a decision. And so we played Tower Up, in which we were rampant civil engineers/town planners, intent on placing our roofs across city skyscrapers. Each of us had a player board with four scoring tracks in white, black, brown and grey which gave us the first childish sniggers as we spoke about “one up the brown” or a lack of “brown movement.”

Sam did impress mid-game with one move that got him three bonuses at once, but Chris’ slew of prominent yellow domes across the city pushed him into first place.

Chris 53

Andrew 50

Sam 46

Paul 40

Next up was Azul. I explained the rules to Paul and we were off. Sam kept picking up the first player token for minus points, insisting that he liked going first. Paul started slowly, with disparate tiles on his board, but managed to weave them all together with a final round that scored over 20 points by itself.

Paul 76

Sam 72

Andrew 70

Chris 66

We discussed food and, since Sam’s son Joe was going to get pizza for him and his friends, it made sense for him to get some pizza for us at the same time. That plan didn’t go down well and not even the promise of a side salad could persuade Joe.

Then we played Scout. A sort of trick taking game with a really light Circus theme. Not as tenuous as dinosaurs drinking sake, but still very tangential. I tried to bring the circus motif into play: when I put down a pair of tens I introduced it as “Lisa and Rebecca with their two cannons” but it didn’t really catch on.

Chris 38

Paul 34

Andrew 27

Sam 18

Next up was Misfits. Chris started with a cylinder placed upright. Then he sat back and smirked. We carefully placed piece after impossible piece until the entire edifice collapsed, leading Sam to declare “every c*nting piece!” as he ruefully swept the debris into his reserve.

We played twice and Chris won both times. After Chris’ second win, we kept playing Speed Misfits for second place, with Chris counting down the time limit in a vague German accent. I placed second.

After this we played Ito - the pocket version of Wavelength where everyone gets to make a guess. We didn’t do too well, with some pretty close calls. 

“Places to have a secret lair” did okay, with some nice distance between our guesses but in the category Imaginary Worlds to Visit we failed to differentiate the two-point gap between The Planet of Stale Farts and Pubic Hair World.

Following this we gave up on pizza and decide to get curry delivered. After that was ordered, we played Pina Coladice. Yahtzee mixed with Noughts And Crosses. Each square of a 4x4 grid has a target to achieve with five dice rolled three times. Place your meeple (if there’s still room) and four in a row will instantly win the game.

It was okay. I felt a bit like I was watching myself play, but there’s a certain amount of strategy as first Paul then Sam found their paths to glory blocked by other players taking the spaces they needed. But in the end, Chris won with four in a row.

With the curry imminent we played a couple of quick games of Toy Battle. A very simple war game with basic mechanics but a nicely balanced range of soldiers at your disposal. Sam beat Paul on a tie-breaker and Chris beat me outright, having successfully stormed my HQ.

Next we broke for food and then I chose the next game - my last of the day.

It was Quest for El Dorado. Paul’s first game, and he got a rules explanation from, as I recall, most of us at one point or another. It was pretty close throughout, apart from the usual early stages of one playing hanging back for tokens (Sam) while another sped off into the jungle (Chris). But Chris was no amatuer just pegging it and hoping for the best. He neatly balanced his deck and picked up tokens as he went. An purchase of the Captain just as he reached the watery fifth hex was probably pivotal.

I tried to think like Adam by buying a Travel Log (or Travelodge, as Paul called it) to whittle away the flab from my hand, but when I appeared I really didn’t know what to do with it. Nevertheless I actually thought I had a chance until quite late on. False hope.

Chris 1st to arrive, wins tie breaker

Sam, arrived same turn

Paul, only a few spaces short

Andrew, at least I reached the final hex.

*                *                *

mysterious change of narrator

*                *                *

Sam here. The hour was around 9pm, I think, when Andrew left us, and we had a couple more hours of ludological frolics ahead of us. We began them with Rebirth, the game of cathedral and castle construction in post-apocalyptic Scotland. I can't help thinking that if all the efforts going into these rebuilding games went into avoiding an apocalypse in the first place, maybe these great designer minds could come up with something. But anyway. This was new to the ever-patient Paul, so I went through the fortuitously-simple rules and away we went, brick by brick. 

Whilst I set about cathedralling like some kind of Ken Follet enthusiast and Paul remarked that he kept pulling the same type of tile, Chris sped off into a chunky lead, passing 100 points way before we did and enjoying saying the word 'dirigible' in celebration. But his momentum slowed in the final act, and my haul of highland castles and completed objectives got me a vanishingly rare win - by a single point! Chris threw his cards on the table in disgust. 

Sam - can't remember

Chris - can't remember -1

Paul - a few points further back

We celebrated/drowned our sorrows in the Milk Tray chocolates Chris had brought with him. There was no flavour reference so I tried one at random, which turned out to be a hazelnut whirl. I enjoyed it so much I had another, before discovering they were everyone's favourite, including Jacquie, who wasn't even here, but added to the chocolatey shame. Apologies all. 

We played Fantasy Realms next, and any crowing I might have been tempted to do in my Rebirth triumph stuck in my throat as I proved abysmally bad at realming fantasies. 

The game is super-simple: you have a hand of cards that score in different ways, and on your turn you pick up a new card and discard one to the table. You can pick up either from the table, or the top of the deck, but the catch is top-decking hastens the end of the game, which happens when a tenth card is added to the communal cards. Chris more than doubled my score, I think it was something like

Chris 190?

Paul 140?

Sam 80

I poured myself another gin as Paul asked me if I was getting tired. "He's got to wait up for his kids!" Chris pointed out, as if we needed an excuse to keep gaming. Little Tavern was next. 

Chris started and immediately parked an elf at his table. I advised him this was maybe not the best move, because elves in this game are racists and only like sitting with other elves. Chris nodded that he understood and immediately picked up three more elves to score 16 points in the first round. In the second I gave him a face-down romantic and he paired it with another face-up to win! Stupid game. 

We finished off with So Clover, of course, but whether it was the marathon games, the gin, the chocolate, the red herrings or the late hour, did appallingly badly with a 3-2-4 haul giving us 9 points from a possible 18! 

By this time, Joe and his pals were home and Stan was on his way back too. It had been ten hours of gaming and with midnight not too far off, we elected to end it there. Thanks all! Sorry about my foul-mouthed breakdown in Misfits. 

The price of bananas goes bananas

I was late to Joe’s kitchen table but, for once, had missed no games. Apparently the first ten minutes of this week’s games night was spend in polite conversation. Not sure how to react to the fact that this ended once I’d arrived.

We were initially six, with Martin and Anja expected later. So Joe, Sam, Ian, Adam H, Katy and I began with Flip 7, the Pairs-esque card game with added dickishness. Katy played like someone who thought that the further you fell behind, the more you had to push your luck. Which is kind of logical but she ended with no points at all and made me think it might be a good thing if we never go to Vegas. Adam scored 73 in the single round to pass the 200-point finishing line.

Adam 202

Andrew 174

Joe 166

Ian 148

Sam 83

Katy 0

Then Martin arrived and while we waited for news from Anja, the seven of us played Puerto Banana. It’s actually a six player game but by using a clover from a nearby copy of So Clover, we were easily able to stretch it to cover seven.

In this game, we have to buy bananas and we get to chose whatever value we want. But, the twist is that the winner of each auction only pays the difference between the highest and second highest bid. However, if this price is too high then the winner loses everything and then the second placed bid is compared to the third placed bid and so on.

Very silly. Joe’s opening bid was 800, which was much higher than anyone else had put and, indeed, was the highest bid of the whole game. I somehow went through the entire game not winning or losing any bids at all and so ended with the same 10 money that I started with.

Late in the game, high bids become the norm.

Martin 206

Ian 118

Katy 86

Sam 53

Joe 36

Adam 28

Andrew 10

Then we split into two groups, bearing in mind that Anja would be here soon. The trio of Joe, Adam and Ian chose Tower Up - a shorter game with an eye to accommodating Anja when she arrived.

On the other half of the tabel, Sam, Katy and Ian played Pioneer. Place roads across the continent of North America and drop meeples as you go. Pick up different passengers (farmer, banker etc) and trigger their special action as a bonus. “What does a gold digger do?” asked Katy. “Dig gold,” replied Sam. Martin became frustrated at the fact he only had one action per turn late into the game, even though he was cash rich.

I won a sterling victory thanks to my extensive network. Pity it was a victory in a game whose rather blasé attitude to the colonisation (the game’s words) of the United States sat slightly uncomfortably with us.

Andrew 67

Martin 58

Sam 57

Katy 55

During this period, Anja arrived. Adam only had one roof left in Tower Up, so it wouldn’t be long before that game finished.

Adam 52

Ian 49

Joe 40

Then they played Sheepy Time, which Ian won.

Sadly, after Pioneer, my body clock had wound down so I set off home. In my absence, Katy, Sam and Martin played Khan of Khans

Sam 670

Martin 630

Katy 380

And then two games of Viking Seesaw with Sam and Katy winning one each.

On the other half of the table Joe, Ian, Anja and Adam played So Clover but I don’t know the results. But that’s okay. Does history have to know everything?

Lovely evening. See you all soon!

A Steak in the Ground

With a plethora of drop-outs, hosts Anja, Steve, and Louie only had a trio of hardy gamers turn up at their doors last night to keep the orange flag flying: myself (Sam), Katy and Martin. After some brief chat, we quickly split into two groups, conscious that both time and players (Louie had to go to bed in an hour, and I didn't want to stay too late) were in short supply. Louie began setting up Robot Quest Arena with his mum and Katy, whilst Steve sat down with Martin and I to play Pioneers. 

While the Robots began barging into each other and snaffling up new powers, I talked Steve and Martin through Pioneers, which seems satisfyingly simple - at first. Each turn has three phases: get income, buy stuff (roads or carriages) and then move the stagecoach, 'delivering' pioneers from said carriages to matching spots on the board. Each spot has a bonus of some kind, so short-term it's about emptying your carriages (for points) and grabbing the rewards.

Long-term though it's also about building a network of roads; as your network (of your own roads) with the most pioneers in (of your own colour) will score at the end of the game as well. We all had to stop ourselves moving pioneers placed on the board and remember to add them from our carriages, and I think Steve and I had about three do-overs with minor gaffes to correct. Meantime the robots were getting a little hot under the metal collar, as Anja was heard announcing she would rivet-gun Louie, and he repeatedly grapple-hooked - if that's a verb - his enemies to fling them around the board. 

In Pioneers, we approached the endgame. I was optimistic that my biggest network was going to move me far enough up the track that I could claim a debut GNN victory: although Steve's carriage-focused points haul was strong, his pioneers were disparate. The stack of carriages we never thought we'd get through was running perilously low, but I ended the game by placing my last road. 

Steve and Martin had one last turn, and Martin's final move got two Farmers down, and it was enough to snake him ahead of us both!

Martin 59
Sam 57
Steve 55

While we were indulging in a post-mortem on the excellent mechanics and possibly not the most thoughtful theming, Robot Quest Arena came to a conclusion, with yet another win for Louie!

Louie 32

Anja 24

Katy 23

He went off to bed with the glow of victory whilst we played Wanted Wombats. What can be said about this strategically-rich game of wombat gangsters that hasn't been already? Well, Katy could have won when she predicted the $10k card and then banked it. She offhandedly said the next card would be a $5k though, and it was! So instead of Katy winning, I did. 

We played again and this time Steve took the victory. He was very pleased. 

After Steve's little dance we broke out Ito, the Wavelength-in-a-card-deck game of civilised discussion and occasional ranting. Our first spectrum was Important Things In Life, and we failed in the opaque space of subjectivity and pictorial representation as we discovered that we valued doilies more than slugs, but less than Eurovision. "Nobody is listening to me" Anja lamented, after her preferences were overruled by more shouty and obstinate folk at the table (me and Martin). 

We went again Things You Might Find Under a Rock, and were confident that Anja's steak - medium-rare, with pepper sauce - would be the most unlikely of our confections, only to discover it was only 55. To be fair though, at least a steak fits under a rock, and would be less surprising than finding, say, Andrew. Anja might have put a steak there. (And she did propose moving it lower, but we didn't listen). 

Our last salvo was Things That Are Hard To Do Alone, which went a disappointedly smutty direction. Anja's clue of synchronised swimming could not possibly be done with anyone else. An excellent high-number clue! But can sexual intercourse be done alone? Martin, resident latin scholar, pointed out the prefix 'inter' was a telling one. We flipped the cards to discover after successfully getting masturbation, singing and tree-hugging in ascending order (insert great weekend joke here) we'd placed these overtly plurality-based activities the wrong way around in our field of dreams... they were numbers 98 and 99! 

Great fun though, and a lovely way to end the evening. Thanks to all, especially our hosts, and particularly Steve for sacrificing his beloved Turkish Delight. After Katy and I both said we hated Turkish Delight, we ate five of them.