Warming Up

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The kids had a day out at the zoo without us, so I got a holiday day to myself and went retro and spent the day playing Civilisation II and Addams Family Pinball (on the ipad but you can't have everything).

It ate up most of my day to be fair (I did do a personal training session and some dog walks so I got some exercise). it's been a while since I've Civ IIed - I did a bit live streaming at the start of lock down, but I really associate it with being in my flat alone in the 1990s and having noone to go out with and spending the whole weekend playing into the early ours, until settlers and phalanx wandered across my retinas even when I wasn't playing (I didn't really get this this time and wonder if I didn't have aphantasia then - surely it can't be something that I lost without realising?).

Addams Family pinball was something I played a lot in the mid-90s and I associate it with killing time in pubs when my then girlfriend was rehearsing plays in Richmond. I was good at it. I could make a couple of quid last the whole afternoon.

It also reminds me of being unnecessarily rude to this man in the basement of Virgin on Oxford Street in 2003.

I nearly bought a table a few years back for £3000 - they go for about £15000 now - but the deal fell through (think it was my fault), but the ipad version is great.

I really want to play Civ II without any fighting (maybe the odd bit of subverting) and just live a peaceful life of making the land irrigated and mined as possible, so I binned one game when I was well into democracy as the Romans and Vikings wouldn't stop fighting me.

I probably played for a bit too long and as relaxing as I find it, it does make you feel a bit squiffy after too many hours, but at least I am too old and tired to stay up til 2am these days. At least today.

I loved the book Heresy by Catherine Nixey and was very lucky to get to speak to her on this week's Book Club.