Ruling Britannia XV

I have noticed in the past 15 months of writing Ruling Britannia that some people are much easier targets than others for abuse. There must be a gene for it or some kind of aura that is given off because after knowing someone for a couple of weeks you can label them or not as someone who will have the piss taken out of them for their entire lives. These people seem to be walking lightning rods for any bad or embarrassing situations that might be brewing on the horizon. Take the Gentleman's evening a few months back where James, Mike, Snap and myself were all sitting there watching a strip show. Now if you said that one of the four of us was going to be pulled up on stage and humiliated in front of everyone (and then pissed on), there would be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that it would be Mike. The mental image just wouldn't work with anyone else. By the same stroke if you said that one of us would fall in love with a porn star and then get robbed of his credit card then it could only be Tobes (or Mike but he wasn't there). Now the great thing about these kinds of people is that they are great friends to have. You can be sure that when you are with them, if anything bad happens, it won't happen to you.

Now, as Snap found out this month, the problem is with this theory is that it is total bollocks. There is no such thing as an unlucky person , by and large bad things happen to people because they deserve it! Therefore, while Snap has never really been a major source of stories for Ruling Britannia, this month the girlie haired Scotsman is going to take quite a pounding. Let this be a warning to all of those people who think that bad things never happen to them.

You may remember last month that Snap and Tobes had both just been dumped by their girlfriends. Tobes on one hand took the traditional route of Denial, Depression and Acceptance via not eating for a week, buying a poster saying 'I Love Life' and founding the masturbation capital of the South East in his bedroom. Snap on the other hand opted for a more deranged route. First of all he decided that the best way of getting over being dumped was to drink large amounts of alcohol. This seemed to work and he seemed to be outwardly over Aziza. Then 2 weeks later he got a date with an attractive Redhead from where he worked. After about a week and a half of trying to get her into bed, she too dumped him. A few days later he then got a date with a 17 year old girl who was a friend of a friend or something. This was due to happen last Thursday, however when we arrived home on Wednesday, Aziza was up in Snap's room and he was lying in bed in a dressing gown. By six o clock they had got back together and incredibly by eight thirty they had managed to split up again. Snap still had a date with the 17 year old the following day whom he managed to pull and then went missing for 24 hours before turning up in the same clothes he had been wearing the night before. Snap, you are a slut and you deserve everything you got on your birthday (although more of that later).

While we are on the subject of follow ups from last month, you may remember that we were making a game called 'The Trouble with Trekkies' a CCG based around the tournament and pub scene in London. Progress is not going particularly fast but we do now have 6 cards printed out some of which are pure class! The problem is, people are constantly coming up with new cards meaning that we have probably planned about the next 3 expansions now! Hopefully we will have playable decks made up in about 3 months although I wouldn't hold your breath about us crushing Decipher and Wizards of the Coast beneath our sandals yet given that our card making equipment consists of a couple of crap colour printers, Adobe PhotoShop, some old Trek Commons and some twisted imaginations. However the sky over London may soon be rife with phrases such as:

'I play a pint for free to Warwick SU, then I'll attach it to Martin Allen to bring him out of Beer Deprivation and then for my first action I'll play Drinking session with all my personnel present.'

If this intrigues anyone and they want a rules list or spoiler list then email me and I will send one out.

So anyway, meanwhile back at the tournament scene, things are looking pretty scary. You may remember me saying at the end of last issue that I got seriously beat in a tournament in Harlow. Well a couple of weeks later I tried my hand at another constructed tournament back in London. Deciding to go with the flow and play DQSS, I played a 'Guardian of Forever' deck which could win in about 3 turns with the right draw. I was confident that I could do quite a bit of damage. What I hadn't counted on was the quality of the opposition these days. I lost games to Mark Radford (his usual super-fast Vidiian deck), Gareth Cheeseman (everything went wrong) and DT (playing an Invasive Beam In deck). I came so far down the tournament I couldn't see the top with a telescope and continued my worst run of form in 5 years. To sum up the day, in the final game I played against Mark and got a dream start scoring a mission for 50 points on turn 2 and clearing out the Dilemmas from the next mission. He then won before I could complete the mission. Time to rethink my deck building I think.

I was so pessimistic about my own playing ability by this point that I decided to run the next tournament instead. I put in a much better performance this time making some good rulings and only making one minor mistake all day. Unfortunately my status as the TD prevented me from getting any glory or claiming any prize support for this performance which was a shame. Good job I wasn't playing really as the standard of decks was once again magnificent. Ringo won with a Q-bypass deck, DT finished runner up with another sick DQSS variant and Mark came in third continuing his Vidiian love affair. Marks deck was a little on the slow side however because unlike Ringo's, DT's and Mike's decks he didn't manage a one turn win all day. Scary stuff!

Of course the really big thing about this tournament was that it was Snap's birthday. I suppose it would have been nice if he had done exceptionally well in the tournament as a little birthday present. I suppose in reality he did as he finished 5th rather than his usual spot about 8th. Snap is coming with me to D-Con though and you should play him if you can as he is a really fun person to play against (and is always good for that mid-game sing song that seems to be sadly missing from top level games these days). So anyway, Snap's birthday. After the tournament, we returned after a 2 month break to our regular gothic haunt the Purple Turtle with a crowd of 8 or 9 people. The idea was that Snap would have to complete a challenge every half hour. If he succeeded he moved onto the next challenge, but if he failed he would have to start again. His success rate would be measured by the highest number challenge he reached. He fared as follows:

Stage 1 - Tequila!

All he had to do was down a shot of Tequila. However everyone quickly worked out that as the next challenge started as soon as the previous one was completed he would be better off using the complete half an hour. Therefore he sat there sipping a jug of Orange Shit (trademark purple turtle menu 2001) before neatly downing the shot of Tequila after 27 minutes.

A relic of my days at Warwick, this contains a bottle of Bacardi Breezer, a bottle of Smirnoff Ice, 2 shots of Bols Blue, Gin, Vodka and Tequila. Snap became only the third person in history to down one of these in one.

Simple challenge, get the phone numbers of any two women in the bar that he did not know. He cheated slightly by telling them the challenge first but we will let him off.

Strawpedo a bottle of WKD. Successfully completed with a minimum of fuss.

Put a measure of Baileys and some lime in your mouth at the same time and shake your head around. The resulting concoction should be chewed thoroughly before swallowing. Completed within the time although the look on Snap's face told a story.

Get any woman in the bar to buy you a drink. Snap cheated horribly on this one by tipping the bar maid loads of money to do it. He was a bit drunk by this stage though so it was probably his only chance.

Drink 7 shots of spirits carefully mixed to provide one of each colour of the rainbow. James spent quite a long time at the bar working this one out. This was probably the challenge that finished Snap off totally especially as the shots included Absinthe and a lot of After Shock.

This final alcoholic concoction proved a little bit too much for Snap. He was given a choice of two, this was the option offered by Glasgow's 'Big Angry Mike' preferred by Snap to the version offered by BAM's girlfriend which was 'walk around for half an hour with a hard on'. To be honest, after that much alcohol we don't think he could have maintained it for longer than 30 seconds anyway.

Of course meanwhile there was plenty of other stuff going on. Howard managed to get chucked out of the bar for trying to score from a bouncer and everyone else was getting steadily drunker. Mike, DT and Snap decided to have a wrestling match and after finishing the 8th challenge Snap went into the toilets and stuck his head down the bowl for about 45 minutes. It was at that point we decided we had better leave. The fun was not over however given that while we were out, Tobes had rearranged the furniture in Snap's room and put an inflatable sex doll in his bed. The doll still resides in our living room. We call her Rachel.

So this leaves us only 2 weeks away from the European continental and 3 weeks away from Gencon. I have never been to the continental before but I understand it is a great laugh even if it is held in France. It's just about my only chance to pay some of my trip to D-Con this year so here's hoping. I am looking forward to playing some of Europe's finest including Ringo, Joeri and er DT. Oh dear, it appears all of Europe's finest now live in the UK. I would quite like a rematch against Johnny 'Time Out' Ohlsson though. Maybe we'll even get to finish this time. To be honest actually, I know there are a number of good players on the continent and the way I'm playing at the moment, it will be an honour and privilege to lose to every single one of them. GenCon should be a different kettle of fish. GenCon is about a Trek Open floating in a sea of beer. Anyone who doubts this has clearly never been to UK GenCon. Past highlights include the 1998 Mullet Spotters Corps and the 2000 epic that was made into a film entitled 'GenCon III: The Quest for Parsley'

Before I move onto readers mail, I want to share two more stories with you that I haven't had room for before. The first is that Ringo applied for a job in a gay bar and got turned down because he refused to flirt with the customers. Mention that to the former world number one next time you meet him! I'm sure that must come under some sexual discrimination act or something. Secondly, we found out the full story about Mike and the stripper. Although the bit about him being pissed on has always been pretty clear in mine, James and Snap's memory, a certain amount of confusion arose over what happened when Mike went backstage after the show to apparently go to the toilet but came back with a big grin on his face. Now it took about 4 months for us to find out but apparently he got a blowjob from the ugliest stripper because he bought her a drink. Must have been the best 12 seconds of his life.

Anyway onto readers mail. Now if you remember, a couple of months ago I posted a story about Jon Corbett getting banned from all Major Rakal's tournament's for writing something on a blackboard. Now I thought I was fairly nice about this (even complimenting him) but he took exception and maintains his crappy WWF image of being 'The Game'. Now I've got to share with you this pile of drivel that I received from 'The Game' this month. Notice the fantastic grammar, dubious history lesson and illogical train of thought.

'Arses? What in blue hell are you talking about? Listen up clown, The Game's birthday is Feb. 22. What does this mean you ask? That also happens to be the birthday of a man named George Washington. You might remember him, he made quite a name for himself by kicking British ass all over the East Coast. So in November we will have a repeat of history, just like George did to that candy-ass Cornwallis, I'll be kicking all you British right the fuck out of Virginia.

I am THE GAME and you do not want to play me.'

Big talk indeed but two other players from the region seem to disagree with him. First Jesse Carlucci has his (albeit rather biased) take.

'This is Jesse Carlucci (NY state champion) and I would just like to point out some reasons why NJ does NOT rule the Romulus Region :) The two best players in NJ, Len Niedorf and Jon Corbett suck. Yes, they really do suck. For example, at NJ states, Jon Corbett seeded 2 Terraforming Stations, and couldn't even beat Len in the final confrontation. Why is this you ask? He sucks. At Ramapocon in NJ, David Goldberg finished 1st, while I finished 3rd. Len and Jon were 4th and 2nd. They couldn't even win an open in their home state. I'd be pretty impressed if either of them could build a good deck that doesn't involve Ajur/Boratus or DQSS.'

The second comes from a player who would like to remain anonymous.

Ian, I happen to know a lot about this incident, as I have heard both sides. And there are a couple of issues I would like to address.

I'm starting to really enjoy this argument. Does anyone else have a take on this whole NY/NJ thing?

Finally, this months Song of the Month comes from the one and only Snap. Actually this was supposed to be last months song of the month but he never finished it in time.

Next month, what happened at Gencon, what happened at the European continental and what happened when me and Ringo tried to drink 16 pints of beer in one day.