Where Worlds Collide

The NME has come up with their annual list of best albums of all time.

1. The Stone Roses The Stone Roses
2. The Smiths The Queen Is Dead
3. Oasis Definitely Maybe
4. Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks
5. Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
6. Blur Modern Life Is Rubbish
7. Pulp Different Class
8. The Clash London Calling
9. The Beatles Revolver
10. The Libertines Up The Bracket

Much as I would have expected, it says more about the NME than it does about any artist on the list. Are they really saying that the flavour-of-the-month Arctic Monkeys are better than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie or Pink Floyd?

One thing to remember is that the NME doesn’t represent anything like the whole of British rock, but just those bands that fit a very narrow template of what they think rock should be. The great tragedy is that the NME has had far too much influence over what new music gets exposure; they have the same malign influence over UK music as corporate commercial radio has in the US.

The other thing to remember is that Britain’s baby boom was a decade later than America’s, and came of age during the punk era in the late 70s. Just like America’s boomers they’ve mistaken stupid generational prejudices for eternal truths.

This explains the lack of late 60s/early 70s artists in the list; they represented everything that was completely out of fashion way back in 1977. Later generations of NME hacks seemed to absorb these prejuduces by osmosis. For example, anything connected with 70s prog-rock is dismissed with derision; which is why you’ll never see Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin on any NME list.

Saying that, the list is stupid even by NME standards; the ridiculously over-hyped Arctic Monkeys only released their album a week ago!

I’ve always had mixed feelings about The Forge. On one hand, they’ve got some very good ideas about game design, particularly when it comes to questioning assumptions and sacred cows. And they have come up with some interesting games. On the other hand, they do sometimes come over as insufferable elitists.

But when Ron Edwards comes up with something like this, I do have to wonder if it’s still possible to take him seriously. Is he becoming the Sid Vicious of RPGs?

I’ll say this: that protagonism was so badly injured during the history of role-playing (1970-ish through the present, with the height of the effect being the early 1990s), that participants in that hobby are perhaps the very last people on earth who could be expected to produce *all* the components of a functional story. No, the most functional among them can only be counted on to seize protagonism in their stump-fingered hands and scream protectively. You can tag Sorcerer with this diagnosis, instantly.

[The most damaged participants are too horrible even to look upon, much less to describe. This has nothing to do with geekery. When I say "brain damage," I mean it literally. Their minds have been *harmed.*]

The structure of lumpley.com makes it difficult for me to determine the context in which Ron made those comments. But it did result in a further posting by Vincent Baker

The purpose of this blog is to judge people’s fun. We begin by judging our own fun, but in doing so we will and always will judge others’ fun too.

I hold standards of quality to be independent of individual tastes. Accordingly, everyone who participates here must do so with the understanding that the fun that suits their individual tastes might be called crappy, broken, lame, sucky, wimpy, stupid, or even pathalogical. You may feel free to defend your favorite fun if you’re so moved, but you should do so in terms of its objective quality, without falling back upon “everyone likes what they like,” “all tastes are equal,” or “judging my fun makes you an elitist.”

I expect each of you to have the self-understanding and emotional maturity to make your own decisions about your participation here, given this. My experience so far has overwhelmingly borne this out, and I expect this post to make the process only easier for us all.

Which is why I’m responding on my own blog, where I set the rules. I think Ron Edwards’ post is a blatant troll, and I have every right to take offence at the idea that I’m somehow ‘brain damaged’ by the fact that I enjoy ‘simulationist’ style games. While I’ve also enjoyed Forge-inspired games like ‘Primetime Adventures’, Ron Edwards’ hubris-filled attitude is likely to make me take Forgeite-Narrativist stuff less seriously.

(Link from The Phoenyx Gamers List)

Graham Farish have announced What’s New for 2006.

• BR 3MT Standard 2-6-2 Tank
• LMS Jubilee
• Class 04 Diesel Shunter
• Class 150 DMU
• LMS Stanier coaches (5 types)
• OBA Open
• Bogie Bolster “C”
• TTA 4-wheel Oil Tank
• POA Open “box”
• 12t Ventilated Van
• “Seacow” bogie ballast wagon
• New 40′ and 20′ containers for the freightliner flat

On paper (or electrons), it’s an impressive list. But when you consider that many of the promised 2005 items have yet to materialise, it makes we wonder when, or perhaps even if, we’ll see all these items. Past experience has made me cynical; the class 60 locomotive has been in the catalogue for something like three years, and the 66 took almost the same length of time to appear before Dapol forced their hand.

Some of them are predictable shrinkings of their 00 range. I find the TTA particularly welcome; the existing Peco model is getting very long in the tooth now, and isn’t available in any modern liveries.

One can’t help but notice that several items, including the 04, the 150, the Stanier coaches and the Seacow were once proposed by Dapol, and I can only assume this is payback for the 66. Dapol have since announced that they’re going to abandon these models in the light of the Farish announcements. It’s also been said that they’d done little or no work so far on them, so haven’t wasted a lot of money.

Specially for Michael, a shot of the Blonay-Chamby steam railway in Switzerland, taken last summer. The train stopped just before the bridge, and they let those of us with cameras disembark, troop along the narrow walkway, and photograph the train slowly puffing across the viaduct. The Health and Safety Commision would have kittens if any British preserved line attempted something like that!

The metre-gauge Blonay-Chamby line runs for about three miles in the hills above Lake Geneva, with connections at both ends to other metre-gauge lines. The line closed and was taken over by preservationists in the 1960s, and they retained the overhead electrification, which is still live, as they also run a lot of preserved electric railcars.

The loco is an ex Furka Oberalp rack-and-adhesion 2-6-0T, although there are no rack sections on this line.

Dave links to the application of Occrams Razor to the theory of Intelligent Design, and comes to the only possible squamous and rugose conclusion.

Commenter Temple Stark finds it amusing that Britain has a train company called Virgin Trains, and asks if there are any pictures of them pounding hard into tunnels? Well, you asked….

It’s actually leaving the tunnel rather than entering it. The location is Horse Cove tunnel, Dawlish, in July 6th 2004. More pictures on that day on my Fotopic site.

Dapol generated an enormous amount of hype by declaring a week ago they’d be making a major product announcement at noon today. This is what they finally announced:

During mid 2005 Dapol announced that we would be releasing Stanier Coaches in N gauge at the Warley 2006 Show.

However, due to customer comment, feedback and demand we have decided to postpone this model and instead we have decided to manufacture a series of GRESLEY COACHES.

Already at the early stages of production, these models are being produced using brand new tools, and will be released at the Warley 2006 Show.

Initial body designs will be 3rd Class, 1st Class and Brake Composite. Buffet cars will also be included but �Sleepers� are still under review.

As with all Dapol N gauge Coaches, the models will have highly detailed interiors and will be produced with a range of alternative running numbers to enable our customers to create a pro-typical rake.

However, Dapol would like to involve customers in the choice of the actual livery to be initially produced. There are of course three main liveries to consider:

Teak : BR Maroon : BR Crimson and Cream.

Therefore Dapol have added an extra section within our ‘Contact page’ below, where customers vote for their own particular favourite choice of livery. We must state however, that we can only except one vote per person.

By mid 2006, Dapol will collect all of the comments and will make the ‘most requested’ livery as their initial model. Furthermore, from all of the ‘most requested’ responses received, Dapol will randomly select one customer and will present to that person one of each of the initial release of Gresley Coaches.

As with all Dapol models, regular updates of its progress will be posted on the Dapol website.

Dapol have clearly been looking at the absurd prices that the long-discontinued Minitrix models have been fetching on Ebay. If that’s the case, I would expect the maroon livery to appear first.

Strictly speaking, such kettle-era coaches are a little outside of my chosen time period; although I have seen pictures of maroon Gresley coaches behind a class 52 “Western” in Devon. It’s hoped they will be doing the Buffet in Blue/Grey, which actually outlasted the Westerns themselves.

Simon Hoggarts Diary in the Grauniad today listed a whole load of viola player jokes. A few minutes Googling leads me to believe he got them from here. There are three whole pages of viola jokes, of which this is an example:

Q: Why did the violist marry the accordion player?
A: Upward mobility.

Although it’s mostly about orchestral musicians, there are the inevitable bass player and drummer jokes:

How many drummers does it take to change a lightbulb?

1. “Why? Oh, wow! Is it like dark, man?”
2. Only one, but he’ll break ten bulbs before figuring out that they can’t just be pushed in.
3. Two: one to hold the bulb, and one to turn his throne (but only after they figure out that you have to turn the bulb).
4. Twenty. One to hold the bulb, and nineteen to drink until the room spins.
5. None. They have a machine to do that.

How many bass players does it take to change a lightbulb?

1. None. They let the keyboard player do it with his left hand.
2. Don’t bother. Just leave it out-no one will notice.
3. One, but the guitarist has to show him first.
4. Six: one to change it, and the other five to fight off the lead guitarists who are hogging the light.

There’s a rather alarming front page on Rupert Murdoch’s Times on government proposals for deregulating rail fares.

RAIL fares will more than treble for some journeys under government plans to scrap saver tickets and give private operators greater freedom to set prices, The Times has learnt.

Passengers who are unable to book ahead will have to pay a substantial premium even if they travel during off-peak hours. Many will be forced to buy a standard open return ticket, which, in the case of the London to Manchester route, will cost �202, compared with the saver price of �57.10.

One the face of it, this sounds like the doomsday scenario the opponents of privatisation warned us about. Train passengers have already endured fare rises well above inflation for several years. If there was to be an overnight trebling of petrol prices, there’d be riots in the streets, and the government would fall within a week.

But is the tabloid Times exaggerating things for the cynical purpose of selling newspapers? One commenter on the uk.railway newsgroup has suggested that the journalist writing that piece is a bit of an anti-rail loon, and his speculations should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The Scotsman has a rather more sober analysis, based on actually speaking to the train companies.

A spokesman for Virgin Trains said: “Long-distance operators face intense competition from the private car and airlines. We have found by experience that the best way to meet that competition is by improving train services and offering cheap fares.

“The lowest priced tickets are already unregulated, but are still offering journeys which in real terms are cheaper than they would have been in earlier years.”

Both Virgin and GNER now allow cheap tickets to be booked up to the day before travel.

The Virgin spokesman said: “Sales of advanced purchase cheap tickets have increased substantially since we removed the original deadline of three, seven and 14 days last September.

“But there will always be a place for a reasonable turn-up-and-go fare because one of the great advantages of rail travel in Britain is the ability to just turn up and get on a train.”

It’s also claimed that many peak hour ‘open return’ tickets are absurdly overpriced, with the result that many peak hour trains are actually running half full, and most of the people who do travel on these trains have some kind of discounted ticket. One wonders why a business which still receives substantial government subsidy is allowed to waste resources by running well below capacity in the peaks.

I have to say I don’t totally trust Virgin Trains. I’ve suspected they would dearly love to turn into a ‘grounded airline’ with compulsory reservations for all services, probably accompanied by a byzantine ‘demand-based’ fares scheme. This would be a lot more convenient for the operator, even if it’s far more cumbersome and inflexible for the traveller.

Hopefully, market forces won’t allow them to get away with it, but not being a libertarian ideologue, I don’t totally trust market forces either.

Who else but Mike Knell of Not in Production would write a complaint to South West Trains in verse? A sample:

I stepped forward in order to open the door
(Of a Siemens Desiro of class 444,
As being a bit of a trainspotting wonk
I often recall such irrelevant bunk.)

But the buttons to open the doors were inactive,
And the train just stood silent, Teutonically passive
With no visible guard to beg for admission
(He was probably inside with his head in a Grisham.)

He deserves some SWT travel vouchers for that.