Tale of More Warlords #2 - Forge World Sigma Iotia

A quick write-up intended to introduce and set some character for a Forge World of my own, this has been painstakingly typed on my phone during a long train journey - forgive any odd mistakes or turns of phrase that don't make sense! This should be taken as a draft, and will definitely be touched up and trimmed where necessary.

Mars has always been a beautiful world to those with the senses to appreciate it. Raw, windswept data sweeps across the ravaged red sands of the plundered world with tidal force. Ancient scrap-code and echoed binharic cants swirl and dance like breakers beaten to foam against the vaults and firewalls of impregnable Martian forges and saviour stacks. Man returned life to Mars only to savage it for its mineral worth and render untold glories down to fine red dust once again, but in those echoes whispers the knowledge that such things were once possible, and must therefore be possible again for the mind with grit enough to sift the shifting dunes of scattered nonsense floating through the noosphere for a glimpse of meaning.




Beautiful, yes, but maddening in turn. Ask the ocean how to build a world and see what it tells you. To the Priests of the Cult Mechanicus, failure means only that they lack the means, and if the Adeptus Mechanicus knows one thing with absolute certainty, it is this: Given sufficient time, the statistical likelihood of attaining insight to overcome a barrier approaches certainty. When a mind isn't linked to such temporal concerns as ageing, it allows the Tech-Magii to be extraordinarily patient...




In the closing years of M37, a small and distant world far from the light of the Astronomicon was discovered by augurs of an Exploratory Fleet dispatched centuries hence from the Red Planet. Fact-grabbers and data-miners expertly flensed useful information from the worldwide data network that the descendents of long-forgotten Terran colonists had developed. Crudely effective, it confirmed to the lurking Martian fleet the vast resources of this distant world; the Magos commanding the fleet designated the planet Sigma Iotia II, promptly dismissed the irrelevant cultural garbage flooding the primitive communication network, and fell upon it with the cold, calculated hunger of an apex predator. Organized resistance against the Skitarii cohorts sent to pacify the populace ended in days. The planet was deemed compliant within a standard month. Magos Dominus Okmyx-β made planetfall and declared it his sovereign territory. Forge World Sigma Iotia was logged dutifully by accompanying cartographic scryers and the information dispatched to Mars.

While the fleet's colossal spaceborne factories and generators descended to the surface, medicae units attached to the Skitarii began assessing the remnants of the local population for suitability as servitors and labourers in the grist mills of their new overlords. Oxmyx's acquisition was not without a curious, lingering blight on his attention, however. While the rapacious engines of the Mechanicus set about converting a moving world to the iron-blooded machine it could be, Okmyx became plagued by a nagging subroutine in an emotional capacitor he had set aside to excise and parse human reaction to sensory inload - namely, worry. Concerned that he had overstepped his bounds as an Explorator by having laid claim to the world without permitting rights of first refusal to his few superiors on Mars, he set himself on the path of righteousness with a fervour only a machine could sustain and a piety reserved for those few in the Mechanicus that allowed for a soul, and through it the possibility of damnation...

Sigma Iotia quickly became a Forge World in its own right, but one utterly devoted to the Martian ideal. Part manufactory, part shrine, every momentary fragment of data and every possible scrap of stray thought from lower level functionaries of his will was flash-cloned and saved by Okmyx's scribes and backup artisans. Sigma Iotia became a world steeped in repetition and rote, capable only of hoarding and collecting information rather than even the slightest hint of innovation or drive to discover. As a result, the information networks and noospheric capabilities of this relatively young Forge World are second to none, and its ceasless hunt for further information to stuff its librariums has lead to remarkable discoveries on the fringes of known space.

Some hold that Okmyx has lost his edge and that he serves merely as a glorified scribe servitor on an outpost of Mars, but those that have witnessed firsthand the pinpoint precision of the Iotian Skitarii and the skill with which his recovery clades pick through the rubble of civilizations judged extraneous to requirements know that Magos Okmyx-β still possesses the burning thirst to drag the Mechanicus out of the benighted Age of Waning and return it to the heights of its former power...

Tale of More Warlords Project Diary #1

I have a confession to make. I am a hobby magpie. I'll finish one miniature, maybe two, then flit to the next project that's caught my eye and finish another couple of miniatures for that before finding a third distraction. On it goes! You might know someone like me, or you may even be personally familiar with the instant gratification that comes of finishing whatever strikes your fancy at that exact moment. It's fun, of course, to paint what we're in the mood for, but it does rob us of one of the great satisfactions of our hobby: Something finished! A collection of miniatures with some kind of unified theme or purpose, whether it be an army or a bunch of characters from something we like. There is a unique sense of accomplishment that comes of having finished something which can be hard to describe, but I think it's one of those holy grails in our hobby.

Finishing any kind of project requires planning, forethought, an idea, a dash of creativity, and no small amount of investment of time and work, and boy oh boy, can it sometimes feel like work! The pride that comes of being able to hold up the culmination of all that you've put into it, though, is absolutely worth it, and most importantly, will never really fade. Once you've painted an army of miniatures, you have that army forever. You may learn better techniques and produce results you like better as your skills develop, but that shouldn't take the shine from those early efforts. You took some plastic, metal or resin and turned it into something that is yours. It can arguably be one of the hardest things to achieve, though, especially when we are exposed almost weekly to something new and shiny arriving on the scene that's so cool, that we must have!

It was with this in mind that Tale of More Gamers really came to fruition. An opportunity to state publicly that I was going to finish something, post regular updates, then be able to show it off and share my work once it was all complete. Time and effort focused on a goal - achievable, certainly, but that would require some real work - and then the celebration at the end! The way that I figure it is that if we're all working toward our own goals and sharing progress, there's the impetus necessary to keep working on a single project without floating away to something else every couple of minutes. Impetus is the right word instead of pressure, I think. This ought to be a project completely voluntary to all taking part, and if it feels like there's pressure to take part or something to be lost in not finishing one's pledge, there should be no shame in putting up one's hands and saying, "I am not going to finish all this on time, but here's what I've done so far and what I'm proud of."

Aah, but there's the question... What to do?!

We are spoiled for choice in this day and age. We are surrounded by awesome miniatures. Outside of the 'big houses' there are any number of awesome boutique-style manufacturers that're sculpting their own miniatures or working with sculptors to fill gaps in the collections available to us today. From obscure or historically minor events to the myriad choices available for fantasy and science fiction gaming, we need never lack for options. The trick, then, is to find inspiration! What we need - what I need - is inspiration and the interest in a project that'll last me the distance to get it finished. It doesn't matter so much if the effort put into it feels like work, but it shouldn't actively be a chore to pick up paint and brush and get cracking on the next colour on these miniatures.

So, with the earlier stipulation that the project should be something that I haven't painted an army of before, here's what I've got in mind for potential projects thus far on the Games Workshop side of things:

• Imperial Fists. These guys are a strong contender at the moment, owing to the mixed challenge of painting a smooth, consistent yellow finish across whole squads, but the sheer wow factor of dropping a bright yellow army on the table. It doesn't hurt that they're a consistent favourite in the lore and their rules are pretty damn good in 8th Edition at the moment.
• Adeptus Mechanicus. I love the Mechanicus. They tick a lot of boxes as far as interests of mine go - post-humanism, body horror, cybernetics - and they're probably the Warhammer 40,000 army that made the translation from concept artwork to plastic the most faithfully. They look like real nightmares built for purpose, and they're damn cool.
• Kharadron Overlords. I love these sky-mining dwarfs. The concept of the Kharadron is absolutely bonkers and I love how special it feels in Age of Sigmar. They're one of the armies that made the leap from 'just like Warhammer Fantasy Battles' and instead had fun being something distinctly Age of Sigmar, and it doesn't hurt that they're basically short Ferengi with cutlasses.

Contrary to popular belief, Games Workshop don't have a total stranglehold on my hobby budget just yet (though if they keep busting out things like Speed Freeks and Blackstone Fortress and those gorgeous Genestealer Cult miniatures on the horizon...), so there are a few other options to consider!

• World War 2. This is deliberately broad since there's a lot of potential choices, and I don't really have a specific project in mind just yet. I do have a fairly large collection of Warlord Games' fantastic Bolt Action miniatures in gorgeous grey plastic still - US, UK, German and Soviet forces - as well as both Deutsches Afrika Korps and British 8th Army from Perry Miniatures. All it would require is to write up the force and set a painting list. Good for my wallet if I'd actually do something with them!
• Dark Ages/SAGA. Something smaller scale and skirmish-based would be pretty neat. I've had the opportunity to visit some of the 'living history' parks around Germany such as Bärnau-Tachov and it could prove super interesting to delve a little further into a specific period and have some fun learning about the actual life and times of the people I'm representing on the table.
• Something else entirely...? Aah, but what? I'd ideally want to be painting more than ten miniatures, but less than a hundred! Maybe something from the Napoleonic period, maybe something in 15mm, or even take the plunge into the 6mm scale? Sengoku Jidai period, and paint samurai? The options are limitless, I'm just not sure in which direction I want to head!

Before we've even gotten to brush and paints the hard work really begins! I'm going to aim to narrow these down a little over the next couple of days and hopefully nail down a shopping list if I need one before Christmas hits and my friendly local game stores totally empty. Something that I can reasonably finish in two months but which won't leave me done in a week with nothing else to do for the time remaining. Something to pin down that hobby magpie and get me stuck into something I'll really enjoy holding up when I'm finished!

The Tale of More Warlords - Uncle Sledge Wants YOU!

It's that time of year. The Christmas markets have sprung up all around Germany - this year's in Dortmund is a neat fusion of a seasonal winter market and a few stalls from the local medieval reenactor society. The days are short, the mercury's low and if you're brave enough to be in stores for any stretch of time the calls between small children and their exasperated parents are becoming increasingly shrill.

Unless, of course, you're from the southern hemisphere, in which case your Christmas is a weird assault between predominantly American and British media featuring the fabled White Christmas and bundling in front of the fireplace with a hot chocolate while you're sitting around in shorts and a t-shirt trying not to explode at the thought of moving. It's such an odd cultural disconnect when all the songs and movies reference this frozen wonderland while you're dead certain that that fur-trimmed suit would incinerate jolly ol' Saint Nick the moment he crossed the equator, but I digress...

Christmas and the coming new year represent a period of immense opportunity to us wargamers. There's a symbolism associated with resolutions, new beginnings and the like which we can easily turn to our own ends. There'll no doubt be plastic and metal by the truckload delivered to homes around the world to be surreptitiously wrapped and hidden from the prying eyes of hobbyists both young and determinedly young at heart, and come Christmas we'll be up to our mistletoe in excited newcomers to our hobby, which is awesome. New blood, new ideas and new enthusiasm makes for a great shot in the arm - or a kick in the arse if that's more your speed - and can provide the impetus we need to get into our glue and paints and get to work on our own projects.

Many years ago - before I was even involved in the hobby, I think! - there ran in White Dwarf magazine 'A Tale of Four Gamers,' which has since become a staple and will reappear every couple of years. The premise is pretty simple: four hobbyists choose an army and assemble their miniatures, setting themselves deadlines and getting their new toys painted in order to end the series with a climactic battle featuring their finished projects. It's a lot more exciting than I'm making it sound! The format changes a little each time, but the idea is easy enough to replicate for hobbyists at home. All you need is a bunch of bare plastic and an idea in your head, and the loose framework of the 'competition' between these four warlords helps maintain momentum and encourages participation - you can't let your opponent get a leg up over you by finishing more units than you can field on the table, after all!

We're lucky in this day and age to have the internet. Instant access to ideas from around the world helps us get our models assembled and finished; the knowledge available from people steeped in their fields can inspire and direct our enthusiasm for something that we might not have known about before. From small groups of friends to local clubs where techniques would be shared we've exploded into an international community with hobbyists all the way around the globe. No matter where you are in the world, if you can get online you can find yourself in a conversation with someone interested in the same things as you, whether it's your favourite Space Marine Chapter or discussing cavalry tactics of the late Bronze Age. I was part of the generation that grew up right at the moment this began to take shape, and seeing the wargaming and miniatures hobby dive into it has been remarkable. If you're anything like me, you get a kick out of seeing what people are doing with their painting and modelling, and enthusiasm is infectious! So, began a few conversations on Twitter, we should definitely take advantage of that as Christmas and 2019 draws nearer. Let's try our hand at running a Tale of Four Gamers of our own, knowing that we won't necessarily be able to all meet up for a game at the end of it!

It was Mr @VincentKnotley that coined 'Tale of More Warlords' for our grand endeavour, and I like how that one rolls off the tongue. There's been a little discussion about how this ought to run, where it should be 'held' online and so forth, as well as talk about what people thought might be reasonable restrictions or requirements for participation. So, after a little thought, here's my thoughts on how we ought to try and tackle this:

• Twitter makes for one of the easiest ways to share and collect links, pictures and conversation. Facebook might prove useful due to its gallery functions, though some folks might prefer the relative anonymity of Twitter by comparison - for now, we'll concentrate on how this will work on Twitter and add to the concept as we go.
• Posts can be made anywhere (Facebook, off-site blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon) and then linked on Twitter for ease of promotion to one another. #TaleOfMoreWarlords is the hashtag we're planning on using.
• Warlords - because, really, let's have some fun with it - are encouraged to tackle a new project on something they haven't done before. A new army, a new game system, a new historical period; something unfamiliar and interesting to them. However: Warlords are encouraged to use this as an opportunity to do something they would like, so if that means adding 1000pts to an army you already have, there's absolutely nothing wrong in that!
• From December 27th to January 1st is when Warlords make their pledges. "I will paint a Blood Bowl team for #TaleOfMoreWarlords," for example, or "For #TaleOfMoreWarlords I will be painting an entire Soviet infantry company for Flames of War."
• Traditionally, Tale of Four Gamers ran for a few months. In order to keep momentum and avoid burnout, we'll keep this a little shorter. February is a short month, so our #TaleOfMoreWarlords will run from January 1st to the Friday of the last week of February - which actually turns out to be March 1st.
• Each week, Warlords should post WIPs, finished miniatures or squads with as many pictures as they like, and include a short write-up on something they like about the project, or some historical or lore-related tidbit they learned while working on it. "This Chapter of Space Marines was first mentioned in Warhammer 40,000: 2nd Edition..." or "This unit of Sikh infantry could have taken part in these significant battles..." Anything about the project that interests you!
• There's no official requirement for how much of anything should be finished during each week, except for a pledge to be complete by the 1st of March. If you're aiming to paint a whole army by then, you might paint a squad each week. Otherwise, you might paint a single character each week and show progress as you go. Again: There is no binding requirement for how much you need to do each week. This is meant to be encouraging and achievable, not to grind you down!
• On the weekend following the completion of the pledge period (2nd-3rd of March) Warlords are encouraged to get all their finished work together and share as many pictures of it as they can. Show off and be proud of your work!

The idea of setting things to a hashtag means that people can either set it as a bookmarked tab in their favourite browser or however they like to keep track of these things. Ideally, if you see someone struggling or wondering how they'll finish something - or outright asking for advice! - you can chip in with something you might know about the subject, some off-site links to useful information or anything you think might help out. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to see a lot of newcomers to the hobby like we do every Christmas, and it's an awesome opportunity for us grizzled old hands to welcome them into the fold and demonstrate the positive power of the internet to really build and encourage that international community.

Now, for my part, I'm torn between tackling a large part of the growing mountain of grey plastic in my cupboards or hoping that Saint Nicholas knows my new address and will show up with something shiny and new for me to paint over those couple of months. Indeed, the hardest part may be deciding what it is I'm going to pledge...

So! Feel free to jump on this now, share ideas and thoughts and start drumming your fingers on the table while thinking about what you'd like to achieve over #TaleOfMoreWarlords. We're about a month out from when we'll kick things off in earnest, so I'll be tapping on this again as we get a little closer to the date in order that folks who might have wanted to get in on it without realising it was actually happening will get to see it - and jog a few memories along the way!

It's about time. Again. For real this time.

I don't think I've ever entirely understood blogging. Back in the heady days of Livejournal I would happily share every waking brainfart that sprang to mind, where Twitter seems to have filled that particular niche in this day and age. Nonsense in 240 characters or less - now that's convenient!

The question to my mind has always been one of how much to share. I second-guess everything that gets posted online. Tweets, Youtube uploads; everything. There's a sneaky little voice that gets me to check if anything is actually 'worthwhile' before it goes into the wider world. Well, people seem to keep enjoying what I'm doing, so that little voice can take a breather for a while and I'm going to try putting my hand to this blog thing. For real, this time. Maybe a weekly round up of hobby stuff I've seen and done, or just thoughts and impressions that people might find interesting from someone else's perspective. I don't know, really. Let's just throw something at the wall and see what sticks.

That's ever the problem with these posts, you see. Is there too much text? Not enough? Am I waffling? Is this the right tone? I feel like I'm usually treading dangerously close to trying to ape the likes of Douglas Adams, or even further back, H.G. Wells. Perhaps, if either of those names strike a chord, you'll like to stick around and bask in the pale shadow of an imitator with less to say and fewer subjects on which he can hold court!

Now, if you're stumbling on to this for the first time, here's a quick look at what it is I'm doing these days - still painting miniatures, but finally having struck on a few methods I like the look of!

L-R: British Officer (Battlefront), German Officer (The Plastic Soldier Company), US Officer (Battlefront)

Nighthaunt Chainrasp painted using Citadel's range of Technical Paints and basing materials.

An Iron Hand Captain in Gravis Armour, from the Dark Imperium boxed set.

An Imperial Fist Sergeant kitbashed from one of the new Space Marine Heroes range of miniatures.

A 'counts-as' Imperial Guard officer kitbashed with several Adeptus Mechanicus bits.

A Wight King demonstrating drybrushing and shading techniques with more Citadel basing material.

Pretty pictures! I'd say I've probably improved a little over time, but I'm quite comfortable with how my painting style has settled as I've gotten into a groove recently. I'm not going to win awards, but I can turn an army out and have fun while I'm doing it, and that's what I'm into. Why, it's the subject of the Youtube channel I run in which I paint things, aptly titled "How I Paint Things." I really wish I'd thought of something better before I got started.

Go ahead and feel free to check the channel out from there if you haven't seen it already. The Celestial Vindicator there is probably one of the recent videos I'm most pleased with, and it gives a pretty good idea of what you're going to get in the rest of them. Simple techniques, easily replicated results and a good looking army when you're finished. Can't beat that!

I think I'm going to sign off on this one for now and actually post again when I've got something more concrete that I'd like to share. There's some wargame rules I've been puttering around with that could use a home, and it's nice to think there's a spot where some of this will remain in situ for a while without having to worry about clicks and engagements and all that kind of carry on.

It's about time! And space ships. It's usually about space ships, too.

Well, it's actually not. Not this blog post, at any rate. This post is about something else entirely; my grand and probably very ill-advised return to the blogging scene! It's only been a couple of years since I had anything of note to tell the world, so you could say that by now it really is about time that I put fingers to keyboard and let all you unfortunate souls know what it is that I'm thinking.

One of the criminal mistakes I seem to make is to boldly declare, 'This blog will be about X!' Then, after a couple of posts about X, I discover that I'm not actually as widely-read or experienced on the subject as I'd like, and it becomes difficult to maintain. The inevitable fatigue sets in and I simply stop posting. This is something I'd like to avoid, except to try to update regularly with something interesting. I've posted before with little snippets of who I am, and I'm sure it doesn't take much of a logical leap to intuit that this is likely to be a soap box for anything of typically nerdy or geeky - italicised due to widely differing opinion on the strict definition of either term - that interests me.

Doctor Who. Star Trek. Warhammer 40,000. Choose Your Own Adventure books. Y'know, the sort of thing that having in your school pack about fifteen years ago would have earned you a thump and a confidence-shattering nickname for your trouble. The sort of stuff that, try as I might to grow up, I simply can't shake an interest for! I'm rapidly approaching thirty (30) years of age and I still regularly carry a sonic screwdriver with me in the left interior pocket of any suit jacket I happen to be wearing. I think that sets the tone for just what I'm likely to take an interest in week to week and post about.

I don't have anything in the soap box to get up and incite unrest with immediately, though, except to share a little something that's caught my imagination recently and I think deserves a little more exposure. Star Trek: Attack Wing is the WizKids entry into the Flight Path game system, following in the ion wake of X-Wing Miniatures. I don't think anybody who's played X-Wing hasn't been immediately caught by the quality of the pre-painted miniatures and the incredible depth of the game. It's one of those which is easy to pick up and, remarkably, not even particularly difficult to master. The number of synergies, tactics and combinations possible with a constantly expanding product range makes it a great one to pick up and start with.

Star Trek: Attack Wing (STAW for short) is a slightly different beast. The ships of the Federation by their very nature aren't as nimble as their cousins from the Rebel Alliance; a Galaxy-class vessel isn't going to fit down the Death Star trench any time soon. It differs from X-Wing largely in a couple of neat mechanics which are a little hard to explain without having a copy of the game out to show off, but the most notable of these is captains and crew. Captains determine the 'initiative' of your vessel - how quickly it reacts and in what order things happen during a game turn - and named captains have special abilities that further enhance how a particular ship works during the game. Crew play a similar part, adding or buffing skills and abilities along with weaponry options. You can, of course, take the U.S.S. Enterprise-D with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in command and Geordi La Forge, Data and Worf assisting. Or you can put Picard aboard the U.S.S. Reliant with his crew, matching wits against the eternally dangerous Khan Noonien Singh aboard the Enterprise.

Personally, I love the way the game works, and in particular I adore the ability to swap captains around, pitting fantasy match-ups against one another. Through a couple of minor alterations in the game mechanics the ships in STAW simply feel like capital ships; the Galaxy is daddy's little fatty coming about in wide, loping circles, where the Miranda has that sharp, nimble turn rate that makes it feel like a light destroyer in a game made for bigger kids. This is all to say nothing of the ships of other species, the ability to cloak, so on and so forth.

Where X-Wing has STAW over the figurative barrel is in the quality of the ship miniatures themselves. Fantasy Flight has a well-deserved reputation for quality in their game pieces, and their tiny toy space vessels are no different in that respect. They're remarkable, straight out of the packaging. STAW is a licenced WizKids product, and as they already make Star Trek ships and figures, a lot of the sculpts are simply re-used and they quite simply aren't up to scratch compared to X-Wing's offerings. Luckily, I happen to have a handful of brushes and paints around to spruce them up and sweep those little issues aside.

On the left is the Miranda as she came straight out of the blister packaging. The right is what happens when she's had a little time and attention with a brush! Now, before anybody gets up in arms about accuracy, I'd just like to point out that the ship can also be used to represent a generic Miranda class as well as the U.S.S. Reliant, so I didn't have the luxury of just making it look picture perfect to the coolest starship ever to grace the silver screen. The models themselves are cool, but they're just not painted in any way that makes you feel suitably grand about putting them down on the table to play with. I'll post a few more as I finish off my little collection.

There's the post, though. Consider this a teaser trailer, if you will, or a glimpse at what else might come! As ever, comments are welcome, and if there's something of particular interest that you'd like to know more about, feel free to let me know. I'll likely keep coming back to painting miniatures - it's something I can talk on at length - but I'll do my best to break it up occasionally with fart jokes and popcorn-tossing movie reviews.

Until next time!

Travelogue: Part Two

(Again, this post has been presented pretty much as it was written. I'm quite pleased with this one, in actual fact, so if you do get a laugh out of it let me know!)


Well, I just figured out how it is that my universal, right-round-the-world plug adaptor actually works, so that means my laptop is up and running and that means I'm back to work. 'Work' being a relative term, being as I'm cruising at 33,000 feet in comfort aboard a Korean airlines aircraft. Economy really isn't as bad as it used to be, judging by the shiny screens, the movie selection and the insistence of the in-flight advertisments (I still have the urge to think of them as propaganda, thanks, Doctor Steel). That means it's time for the thrilling second installment of Troy's travels!

Bibimbap. I learned about something new in the world of cuisine just now. I'm not really a fussy eater by any means, most that know me will attest to the fact, but I have to admit that I do much prefer when my food is actually cooked. When I can readily identify the constituent ingredients with a quick glance at the plate you're not necessarily turning me off, but I like to know that heat was, at some point, applied to my meal. I'll let you know what a bibimbap is, though. You take a bowl. Into that you throw some shredded green thing, some diced white thing which is potentially onion, a second green thing which is neatly sliced and something brown which I think is masquerading as some kind of meat replacement. To throw on top of that you're given a little container of steamed rice which has been thoughtfully permitted to cool and go sticky, along with a small sachet of seasame oil and some hot sauce in a little tube.

I do say 'throw on top' due to the fact that this is a Construct Your Own Meal adventure brought to you by the ingenuity of Korean Airlines, and after the initial gleeful mania of hurling everything I don't recognize into a bowl and giving it a quick mash with your fork wears off, you're left with something that looks like someone who had a serious grudge against vegetables attacked them with... well, hot sauce and some rice. This wouldn't upset me nearly half as much were it not for the way that bibimbap were presented to me in the first place.

"Excuse me, sir, the options for the meal tonight are beef or bibimbap."

Not wanting to push the boat out too far on my first venture into Korean cuisine without at least some forewarning, I put on my best smile and answered, "I'll have the beef, please."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, but we have run out of beef."

Korean girl, your uniform is pressed very nicely and your smile is sincere, but you can't possibly be serious about how that conversation just took place. I struggle. Under ordinary circumstances I'd ask why, but I know very well the answer. Every passenger aboard with a passport that isn't green had the same idea as me. I want to explain to the stewardess that presenting this to me as an option is roughly on par with what my mother used to do with me when I was a child. Present to me the illusion of choice before deciding on a course of action and politely informing me of it. This bugged me sixteen years ago and it bugs the hell out of me now, too.

Very carefully, trying to ignore the potential for a flashback, I return the stewardess' smile as best I'm able. "Sorry, so, uh... what are the options?"

"Beef or bibimbap."

"But there's no beef."

"That's right, sir, I'm sorry."

It wouldn't matter at this point if Bibimbap was an eight foot tall amazon slathered in barbeque sauce carrying a bottle of tequila in one hand and a basket of limes in the other. What I want, now, completely irreconcilable with reality, is the beef. The stewardess is smiling at me, still, in the zeptosecond it's taken me to try and force this grim fact on my now attentive stomach. Beef? it wonders aloud, giving me a quick tickle to remind me of its presence. We like bee-WHAT. I've just heard from up top. Is this shit true?

Yes, it's true. The options are beef-or-bibimbap-but-there-is-no-beef.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm not being set up. Is this a proving ground for comedy material? Is Eddie Izzard lurking somewhere to jot down my reaction? "Is there anything else?" I ask, still smiling the rictus of a man preparing himself for a second sucker punch.

"The only other option is the bibimbap, sir."

That's that, then. I cast my vote like a Russian at the polls. "I'll have the bibimbap, please."

The service is quick and there is wine. I prepare my tray for the meal laid out in front of me and inspect it as it arrives. There's a chance, at least, that there's something good still available somewhere on this place. I can't readily identify any of this, though! I unwrap my fork and spoon to start digging apprehensively around the outskirts of this unlikely meal. Hell, I'd even settle for an eight inch amazon at this point, but she's not to be found and any promises of the tequila with her quickly evaporate. Damn. There's a glimmer of hope, however! To the right hand side of my tray is something gently steaming, something that's been prepared - or even just microwaved - and presented to me as a hot option. God, thank you, there's a chance. Has there been a mistake? Is this both bibimbap and beef on the same tray?

It doesn't take long to inspect the foil and dash my hopes. Seaweed soup. Now, before you turn your nose up and cringe at the mention of it, I've never had seaweed soup. I know that it's a staple of many diets in asia and the pacific, so I lift my shoulders in a figurative shrug and decide I might as well hedge my bets. Get the hot food in me first to improve my mood and then tackle trying to graze on the unruly hodge-podge of miscellaneous forestry that's been arrayed in front of me.

Seaweed soup tastes about as good as you'd expect something called seaweed soup to taste. I make a little 'smek smek smek' face with my lips and give it a chance. It promptly decides that this is its chance to make a full assault on my tastebuds. I am not subject to the Operation Overlord of taste invasions. Okay, I can deal with that. I'm not even getting the US invasion of Grenada over here, so, okay, I've got to set my standards a little lower. Perhaps the Korean people are used to things being very bland? I don't know. I'm a foreigner to their land and customs and increasingly their cuisine. I push my tongue to the roof of my mouth on a manhunt for the flavour of seaweed soup and what I get back is a few tertiary reports from tastebuds long thought lost on a mission to the Plains of Bland. I had hoped for a full-scale thermonuclear war on my senses. I got two guys in a squad car.

I put the seaweed soup aside and focussed on the bibimbap. It came with hot-... shit. SHIT! I just realised as I write this that I had a small tube of pepper sauce available to smear over the bibimbap. Why didn't I think to put that in my seaweed soup?! Shit! That's fucking genius! Damn. I'm going to have real trouble letting that go. Damn.

Alright. The bibimbap. It actually came with instructions! Our row of three was given a small card instruction sheet for how to successfully orient the food in your bowl without looking like a complete and total fuck up. Here, I took a picture of it for you all.

Doesn't it look appetising? That doesn't look remotely like a bowl of chunder, does it? Of course not! Sick would at least be warm! I'm staring down at the monstrosity I've unleashed with a few deft swipes of my fork and preparing to steel myself for the moment I know has to come. I'm hungry. I'm not going to eat for another ten hours. It's beef. It's beef. It came from a cow and has been thoroughly mistreated at the hand of an expert chef who was brought down from his hermitage atop the Himalayas by a team of sherpas and one plucky alpaca with the sole intent of producing something that I will find palatable. Don't worry, Troy. Bibimbap is greasy, uneven and cold - not even properly cold, but the half-chilled of food left unattended long enough to lose its heat from the oven. This is beef. This is everything you wanted. Take your fork, tuck in, take a mouthful. Savour what the ancient art of a hermit chef long thought lost to the world has wrought.

Bibimbap tastes like shit.

If all that build up made you expect some more grand explanation of what I had to eat, ask yourself, are you disappointed? If you are, you're a fraction of the way closer to understanding what I had to endure at that first mouthful of my first exposure to Korean cuisine. It tastes like leftovers out of the fridge. Cold, a little formless after you've stirred it into the bowl to try and kick the flavour awake, but just inoffensive enough as a result that you're left desperating wanting a reason to really kick back and unleash the fury on this stuff. I'm not even scarred by the experience. Just deflated.

The stewardess brought me a beer, though. I'm not too upset about that. I'm trying to read the writing on the can and I just can't shake the feeling that it looks like the 'hieroglyphics' from Futurama. I am enjoying this beer. I think the first thing I do when I get off the plane in New Zealand is head to a bakery and get myself a pie.

You can guess what kind.

Travelogue: Part One

(Author's note: These are presented without editing, as per usual, as I sat in various places with my laptop on the journey from England to New Zealand. Good luck and god speed, my poor readers, as the first content in an age is the ravings of a man without sleep.)


I've never been one to travel well, which is ironic how many times I actually have. I've toured parts of the world I never thought when I was a boy that I'd ever see, and despite this I still get the jitters when it comes up that I'm going to have to get on a bus, board a train or pack for a flight. I just don't like it. I'm a remarkably sedentary person when I can be, known to remain still for periods of hours, even days, with breaks only to roll over slightly or to make an emergency dash to the bathroom when necessary. If I thought I could avoid peeing without the messy business of having a catheter installed? I'd be on that like a shot, you can believe me. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm lazy, but I definitely favour an economy of motion that might be best described as 'borderline responsive.'

Somehow, though, I'm at Heathrow International Airport's terminal four waiting for a plane to take me to Seoul, where I will then be whisked away the rest of the distance to Auckland, New Zealand. I can't really say with any degree of certainty what it is that's actually going through my head at this point. I'm running on empty, operating on reserve power; the usual euphemisms for being out-of-my-mind blank and drifting through security checkpoints and baggage carousels and clouds of lost, chattering people staring at screens they're far too far away from to read properly. I can't help but think that at some point I made a fairly poor decision, or maybe the right decision for the wrong reasons. I'm not going on holiday, you see. I'm going home.

I don't know when it was that England and I first started to have difficulties in our relationship. First it was subtle things. The little things that England did were really starting to piss me off irrationally. St George flags would erupt like teenage acne at the first mention of the FIFA World Cup (or whatever bloody sporting event that England happened to be competing in at the time on the world stage) accompanied by a marked increase in hooting, cheering and shouting random obscenities down the street. When, invariably and without fail, this was then followed by England being promptly shot off the world stage by a superior sporting opponent, all signs of patriotism were flushed like a bad curry and everyone immediately forgot the words to 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

I mentioned to England that it might be a good idea for us to visit other people for a while, just to get our heads back in the game together. England was sullen, noting that it hadn't actually had an empire in a few years, but it understood my decision and that if that was what it took for me to stay, it was prepared to make some sacrifices. I shopped around a little. Visited America. Spent some time in Germany, which I went back to a few times to really get a feel for the place. I came to the strange realisation that people in the streets of those countries were smiling, often for no apparent reason, but England assured me when I got back that this was the behavior of lunatics, terrorists and recidivists who couldn't be trusted at any cost. I had to maintain vigilance and squeal on my neighbors if I heard anything funny happening late at night, early in the morning or past four in the afternoon on Sunday.

When Tony Blair stepped down rather unceremoniously from office and paved the way for Gordon Brown to slop his unceremonious bulk into the Prime Minister's seat, I was apprehensive. I wasn't above pointing out that no democratic process I could mention had lead to this strange, grey man coming to power. I was assured that all that had happened, everything bad which had taken place over the last few years, it was all Tony's fault. He was a well-meaning villain, Gordon and England told me together, but he was not to be trusted. I should prepare a stake and be ready to tackle him in the street if he was to stray close to residential areas. At no cost was I to even mutter that I'd seen weapons of mass destruction, or Tony would be 'round my house to wreck the place looking for oil. Alright, I reasoned. His eyes are too close together and his smile makes him look like a stoat. I suppose everything could be Tony's fault and everything would be good from now on, right? People would smile in the streets, that'd be a nice change of pace.

No, no. If I was apprehensive before that was nothing compared to watching the poll results on the latest general election, my gall rising as it became obvious that for some bizzare reason the country had decided that the best way to haul itself out of a depression was to elect a pack of hyenas in blue ties, lead by a man who can best be described as a pillock. There are other terms, more offensive, but I can't any longer muster the energy to express my loathing for David Cameron with anything that takes longer to say than pillock. The observant may note that this is also roughly the amount of time it takes to say prick, knob, asshole, cunt, tossbag and willy, so you should feel free to substitute 'pillock' for whichever of those you feel most appropriate. England promised me again that everything would be okay, that I had strong, economically minded leaders who were prepared to make the hard choices to correct the mistakes that Labour had made while in power. Goodness, didn't you realise? It was all Labour's fault that we were in a mess to begin with. Gordon Brown, the grey man, was nudged from the Prime Minister's seat with little fanfare and England immediately set to pestering me about how fantastic the Basketfoot Club Ball Series was going to be this year.

I threw up my hands. On my desk there has always been a small red button under an innocuous plastic cover. It looked like something out of a nuclear submarine and that if you pressed it Abu Dhabi would immediately cease to exist in a brief, violent nuclear fire. Not so. Marked underneath it in simple white script was 'EJECT' and all I had to do was hit that button and I'd be catapulted back to New Zealand. An emergency extraction staged by my family (who will be portrayed in the movie of my life as the A-Team) to return to me to some semblance of normal life. I flicked up the little plastic cover, but I was apprehensive. This would mean travelling! This would mean quite literally relocating my life for the second time. Leaving behind my friends, familiar territory, starting from scratch.

David Cameron began his war on the EU, the Euro and the entire EEC for a 'safer, more progressive Britain' that presumably didn't include anyone that kept a beard, wore a turban or had been educated outside of Eton. I pushed the button.

Now I'm in Heathrow grappling with the internet access it's trying to offer me. I have to pay for it, of course, but I don't think that's really much of a bad thing. I have a fair few hours of flight to sit through and I'd like to have access to my Steam account in order to play some games while I'm in the air. My luck has already begun to turn. For reasons unknown it informs me dutifully that I cannot connect to the Steam network. "That's fine," I tell it, "just start in offline mode and let me access my game library." Don't be silly! You can't access offline mode without updating Steam online. Trying to wrangle the airport wifi access point I start to think I may as well try to recite the Emancipation Proclamation in reverse. In Dutch. It's okay, though, I shouldn't worry. I've got a couple of games on this venerable beast to keep me entertained. I'm sure, if I'm very careful and I ration my resources, I could even watch Star Trek for twenty three hours. I just can't get too excited or enjoy it too much or I'll want to watch the whole thing in one fell swoop and ruin my chances at entertainment. Don't you worry, though, gentle reader. I have access to Notepad, of course, so you are safe. You are provided for by my immense boredom.

I've got a camera, too. A little Sony Cyber-shot which claims to have megapixels (some) and shoot high-def video to a recommended memory card (not supplied). Here! My first picture with it.

[Actually, this is taking much too long to upload. It's just my ugly mug, anyway.]

For the moment I'm going to try and find something to eat that doesn't cost me the use of my kidneys. I'll update more throughout the trip, don't you worry, since I'm not sure that even I have the ability to play Panzer Corps for twenty three hours and find it entertaining the whole way through. I'm sure there's potential for a joke about the gravitas and severe nature of war, but... yeah, I'm wiped out. This is what you get, people, this is all I am at the moment. Do not just me too harshly for this. We're in for one long-ass ride.