Ruling Britannia VIII

Well the year 2000 has come and gone along with it all the expectations that the world is going to end or someone will build a decent Cardassian deck. Now the Christmas break is over, players all over Britain are blowing the dust off of their card collections and trying to remember why on earth that half built Federation Simon Tarses Armada deck seemed such a good idea back in November. Because the truth is, very little happens in England in December tournament wise. Gossip from last month can be summed up in the following few sentences.

But anyway, I haven't got a lot to say this month so instead I will reflect on the previous year and share with you some of the highlights that stick in my mind. I will also for each month give a song that we were singing around the time and for the most part are still singing now. Most of this is original material but regular readers may recognise some of the stories and songs. I present to you '2000: A year in prose and verse'.

The first year of the millennium started in an almost identical way to which it ended. In other words getting drunk at James' New Year's party. Although the most frequently told story about this night is the one about Ringo sleeping in the bush, a far more amusing story in my opinion concerns one Stuart 'I've got a Really Sick Idea' Marsh. Never the greatest party animal in the world, Marshey fell asleep about 23:30. He woke up about 00:30 and uttered the following immortal phrase. 'All I need is 12 Dal'roks'. Can you imagine the conversation in 50 years time.

For the song this month I have one of our early lyrical efforts (you can probably tell). To be honest, it was probably written a bit later than January but it was definitely early in the year. Also it is a bit censored because it was intended to be sung loudly in bard, not published.

February was for England, as for much of the world, Grandslam month. This not only meant a weekend of tournaments but also a chance to visit the haven of the foxy ladies and the pretty girls, the University of Warwick. My home of 3 years was pretty much as I had left it except for if I wrecked a building I could no longer be thrown out of my degree course. Highlight of the weekend has to be Colm (after only being in the city about 4 hours) picking a fight with one of the local, getting laid out and then being taken to Coventry and Warwickshire hospital. I only wish I was there when Colm and his 'minder' Ringo were discharged from hospital at 3am not having a clue where they were.

February's song was written over a long period of time but I believe it was perfected at the grand slam. One verse of this has been printed in a previous issue.

Coincidentally, for the last 22 years, my birthday has fallen in the same month, namely March. This year we had an action packed day starting with a tournament and then moving on to Pages. After Pages a strange incident occurred. We had the idea of going to a strip club but somehow (and the memory is a bit hazy), we were robbed of £20 each and £7 for a pint of beer (no that isn't a misprint) and didn't get to see much in the way of stripping. Just have to put that one down to experience I suppose. The fact I then fell asleep in an Internet café while waiting for the first train home the following morning didn't help.

This months song actually originated on my birthday in Pages and is still a favourite. It is a great one to sing when the real song comes on because the real song is sexist and treats men as objects.

Quite a sad month for the lads but looking back on it, also rather funny. It was the month where Steve Tobin decided to choose a woman (in the loosest sense of the word) over the game and his mates. In this case the woman was no less than second rate porn star Danielle Thorne. I won't embarrass Tobes any more by posting any of the quite serious emails that were sent back and forth over this period but know this. If anyone can get hold of a video starring Danielle (I think one of them was called Anal Adventures or something?) I will pay good money for it. I think between James, Ringo and I we could probably come up with $50. That's it, I'm bored with this topic. Tobin will be pleased to know that I intend to make this my last ever mention of porn stars in this column. Bloody hell, that will be a tough one to stick to.

Actually I'll have to break it straight away because of this song. It's very brief and refers to the resemblance between the tattoo on Danielle's posterior and a certain CCG card. Enjoy.

May was better than April. Tobes eventually split up with Danielle a much wiser and less innocent but had destroyed all his cards so we didn't have to worry about Rogue Borg decks for a while. Also this very column was conceived and born. I must admit its evolved quite a lot from what it was initially intended to be. I was supposed to be a load of tournament reports from around the country along with amusing anecdotes about players. However, the amusing anecdotes turned out to be far more entertaining than the tournament reports which, to be honest, are all pretty dull for all but the most stringent metagame professors. I'm glad that it seems to have become popular with people in other countries. To all readers, the more you send stories to me, the better this column will get!

May's song is the result of a competition to come up with a British Trek players anthem. It didn't take of in the same way that 'Spoonheads' did (see September) but it is an amusing tune anyway.

Oh yeah June. We got a bit sad in June because it was regional season. I think the most amusing moment of the regional had to involve the pub thief, inventor of 'ultimate fluffy dice' (don't ask) Ed Downes. In Ruling Britannia 2, I told the story about how me and Ed ended up wandering the streets of London in the early hours of the morning on the day of the regional. I also noted that it didn't seem to affect my game because I ended up winning the regional, what I didn't share with you at the time is how much it affected Ed. At one point he was playing against James who was using a Q-Bypass deck. He sat there with three Q2's in his hand while James walked through 3 missions for the win. Got to laugh really haven't you.

This months song is an ode to Britain's newest Italian import Luca De Vita. He came to London seeking fame and fortune and consistently comes 3rd in every tournament thanks to solid but ultimately uncreative deck design. He is also reported to be romantically involved with Stuart. Probably because he can listen to his ideas about infiltrator decks without yawning or looking at his watch.

July was the month that saw James and Angela finally get engaged with an appropriate party in Essex (non Brits read 'arse end of nowhere'). A good night in general that had some dubious highlights of which a very drunk James trying for 20 minutes to mime 'plastic paddy' during an impromptu game of charades was probably not one of them. On the other hand him threatening to kill Marshey probably was. London's favourite Decipher employee (by quite a long way) Marcus Sheppard put in an appearance on the promise that nobody would talk about cards all night. His choice of conversation topic was, in fact, 8 year old girls. Our worries that Marcus was a bit……. well, strange were quashed when he 'did a Tobes' at DecipherCon. Rather than have a holiday in Florida with the lads he instead went to New York to have sex. If his superiors are reading this (doubt it) then sorry you had to hear the truth like this.

July's song is a bit of a classic that tends to be broken out into spontaneously around the ten pint mark.

As always, August meant one thing to anyone who appreciates Star Trek and lager in equal proportions; UK GenCon! This year the venue was moved from the picturesque town of Loughborough to the grubby dump that is Manchester. Actually, maybe that's a bit harsh. Manchester is like London, except without the nice bits. What it does have however is a large number of bars. Unfortunately my companions for the week were in different drinking bracket to me, these mainly being Rik, Marcus and Belgian superstar Joeri Hoste. Although all were up for a good time, they weren't good for anything up to 2 days afterwards. At this point, I realised how much I under-appreciate Ringo. We found the Manchester equivalent of Pages which (unlike Pages) had attractive women in it. I think I might drag the lads down there at some point. We could combine it with a visit to England's newest ambassador (super) Billy Ashdon.

August's song is nice and simple but the most popular song ever. You can always remember the words no matter how many drinks you've had.

Ask James, Tobes or me to dig up a memory and you would get only 1 answer. Marina Sirtis night. Guest appearances at Pages are not rare. To be honest I mostly have little interest in them as I don't really care about a bloke who once played the arse end of a cow in Buffy. What made this night was not Marina (although she was entertaining) but it was more the format of the entire night. We had to get to the pub for a photo session at 16:00 and Marina never got on stage until about 20:00. Even the Irish amongst you can probably work out that this leaves 4 hours with very little to do except drink. Oh yes and another 3 or 4 after that because by that time the bottle of bud has become like an extension of your arm and you can't bear to be without it. Anyway if you meet James, mention the fact that he stole a yellow flashing beacon from outside the Houses of Parliament, threw up 3 times (once on the train), then fell asleep on the train and woke up in Southend with the option of either a 45 minute walk home or getting Angela out of bed. Faced with almost certain death in both instances he chose the warmer option.

This song isn't new to regular readers, it appeared a couple of months ago and was written 3 nights before I left for DecipherCon.

Oh yes DecipherCon. Such a great week, it's just a shame that more of the London team couldn't make it. I think everyone who was there would admit it is a great laugh though. I must admit I think the best moment of D-Con for me was the team tournament. Of course this is a biased opinion but bear in mind the circumstances. 40 minutes before the tournament started I was asleep and so was Rik and Joeri was on another team. Only DT was on the ball. 40 minutes later we had a team of three (Rik in his infinite wisdom decided to stay in bed) and decks that had been put together in half an hour. However in four rounds we only lost 1 game between us and won the team tournament beating strong favourites 'The Big Goodbye'. Rik turned up five minutes from the end and got a trophy for sleeping for four hours. Justice was served however because by the time we got back to England he had stabbed himself on the point three times. I hope he is ashamed whenever he sees it in his trophy cabinet.

October's song is another in a series of songs in our anti-Cardassian campaign. This is actually a piece of lyrical genius (even if I do say so myself)

The biggest tournament in London ever (to my knowledge) was held in November. 36 people showed up for the birth of 'Unimatrix London' the capitals Decipher games club. On of the 36 to make the trip was the long absent Stuart Marsh. Stuart dominated the tournament scene between 98 and 99 but then moved house and left the scene for a few months. The return of Marshy was anticipated to be a strong one and he turned up with one of his trademarks, an infiltrator deck. What happened I'm not quite sure but Marshey eventually finished 23rd. Quite how I don't know but rest assured that he won't hear the end of it.

The November song has a special place in my heart because it was devised while Marcus was on the phone splitting up with his girlfriend (yes, the same one that he bunked a holiday in Florida for). It was later modified so that at least some of it was correct though.

Although nothing happened game wise in December, we did have the biggest bar crawl of the year just before Christmas. The funniest thing that happened all night seems really strange looking back on it. We went into about our 8th pub only to see bottles and pint glasses being thrown across the bar. By this stage we were in a defiant mood so instead of leaving the pub we decided to stay and try to get a drink. Just as we gave up, the police turned up and we were held for questioning by the most attractive police woman that you have ever seen. Despite chatting her up with our lager induced charm we were unable to do anything other than clear our names and couldn't even get her phone number from the other police officers standing by (they were very nice about it though). Not to be deterred James decided to try our last source of information; phoning Angela to ask if she could get her name and number through her nursing connections. Why in the cold light of sobriety does this seem nothing like the fabulous plan it seemed at the time?

December's song is a bit like Major Rakal's 12 Days of Christmas except it's better. I'll just give you the last verse, you can probably work out the others.