LIGHTHOUSE

LIVERPOOL MORNING

ANOTHER CANAL WALK

HIATUS

GAMES AND NEEDS

It's a long story, but I've ended up playing D&D (AD&D 1E, in fact) again after a gap of way more than 20 years. I dusted off the old rulebooks and starting preparing a few adventures feeling sure that my interest in the game would peter out very quickly. But that's not how it's turned out. I've been finding not only the actual game sessions but also the prep (way, way easier in the digital age than it was in the 1980's) to be much more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. I know, right? Nerdtastic. Anyhow, while doing some of the aforesaid prep, I stumbled upon an infographic (author unknown) which may tickle anyone familiar with both RPGs and Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

THE CORRUPT

The corrupt cannot imagine people different from themselves; they can only imagine people who have succeeded in hiding their true nature.

Danilo Kiš, The Book of Kings and Fools

the changing of the seasons

caramel coloured feet
and pale blue toenails,
out,
even as the sky sets into its blank whiteness
for the long sunless autumn
and the winter beyond it,
on this windy rock
in a chilly sea.

CANAL WALKS

up and down all morning

years and years ago,
when we were all  big bullshitters,
I had this mate and
my god
he could spin a yarn.
like he told me
that this one sunday morning
he'd been out all night
somewhere in town

and that
he'd got on the northern line,
heading home to wimbledon,
still off his head,
(pills,
puff,
lager),
sweating,
smelled bad,
white jeans all stained
and cigarette burns
on his shirt
and
normal people staring at him,

and that
his eyes had closed

and that
when they opened again,
he was dazzled in the hot glare of daylight

and that he was passing through east finchley,
heading north,

as in he had supposedly been passed out all the way south to morden
and then all the way north on the way back up to high barnet.

well, I didn't believe him
but it was one of those clubland boasts,
one of those ecstasy war stories.
so I was probably all like "what are you like, you nutter."

ROYAL OAK