First Impressions - Zombicide

A few turns into the game

I decided to give Zombicide another workout earlier this week, as I really enjoyed the potential that the tutorial game suggested. As everyone had gone to bed and the kitchen table was free, it seemed a perfect time to experiment. For the game, I selected the first full scenario in the book City Blocks which uses all the tiles that come in the box. As a single player game I selected four characters from the basic game; Amy the Goth, Wanda the Roller-skating Waitress, Ned the Survivalist and Phil the Policeman. Each has slightly different basic skills and/or equipment, and their development tracks also add variety. For example, Wanda starts with double movement from her skates, while Phil starts with a pistol.

The set up went smoothly, taking about 20 mins as I found and punched the counters needed and aligned all the tiles. Production quality of the pieces and tiles is very good, feeling robust and looking excellent. The injection moulded miniatures are also well detailed and excellent.

The objective of the game was to come out from the starting point in the centre of the board, and then collect the four objective counters from the buildings to the North-East, North-West, South-West and South-East of the board whilst searching for basic supplies (water, rice, canned food). Once these are collected, the characters need to exit from a point at the south-western edge with the supplies.

Complicating matters were 4 zombie spawn points spread around the board. Now zombies want one thing ("brains") which they can only get from the characters. The numbers and types that spawn are determined by a card draw for each point cross referenced with the danger level. Zombies include Walkers (slow but plentiful), Runners (faster but as easy to kill as the Walkers), Fatties (harder to kill and always bringing Walker buddies with them) and the dreaded Abomination, which is nigh-on impossible to kill without a Molotov cocktail.

Danger levels relate directly to the success that your characters are having. If you kill a Walker, a Runner or a Fatty, you gain an experience point, Abominations get you five points, as do taking the objectives. As the experience for each character stacks up they'll eventually cross a threshold into a higher level of danger which gains them skills or extra actions. It also means that the zombies that spawn get nastier, providing an escalation mechanic as the characters succeed. The overall danger level for the game is that of the most experienced character, which provides an incentive to initially spread experience evenly across everyone whilst initial searches for equipment and weapons are going on.

Zombies, once spawned, move towards the largest group of players in sight, or failing that the loudest source of noise (from opening doors, shooting, chainsawing, moving around). This means the game is nicely suited to solo play. I made a few small mistakes initially on this, not noticing that noise in buildings can also draw the zombies in.

It pays to be aggressive - it’s not called Zombicide for nothing! Noise counters = weapons use!

One thing I quickly learned was that it pays to be aggressive and carry out 'zombicide'. The game mechanic for turns mean that it is in your interest to make sure no zombies are in your zone at the end of the player's turn, and ideally that adjacent zones are cleared out too (as it is progressively harder to escape the more zombies present). I spent too long in the middle of the game pinned down to the north of the board scared to move lest the survivor's were swamped by the evil dead. I only started making progress once I started being bellicose and carrying out hit and run attacks and gaining ground.

Combat is simple - both melee and ranged weapons work with a mechanic that defines a number of dice to be thrown and the target number to be achieved. Each success is a kill, and zombies are eliminated from weakest first. If you shoot into a zone with a survivor, they take the hits preferentially! A pistol rolls a single d6 with a target of 4+ and damage of 1, while a chainsaw has 5d6 and targets of 5+ with 2 damage. It's good to have a range of weapons from the brutal melee effects of chainsaws and katanas through to the punch of shotguns and SMGs, and the long range power of the rifle, knocking out the enemy before they reach you.

Combat brings short relief, as the game escalates based upon your success. More hordes massing!

The escalation in the game, both in threat and character ability, leave you in a position that you always feel threatened. The feeling of respite when you momentarily clear the streets near you is great, only to be faced with more and greater hordes massing as time goes on!

I recommend the game whole-heartedly, and look forward to playing it with friends. Or even solo again. If only Glory to Rome or Eminent Domain were also so suited to solo play, then I'd have tried them already!

Gratuitous Pics

A short selection of recent uploads to Flickr…

No, I'm not getting an iPhone 5

Several friends have asked me if I want to get the new iPhone 5, and I've told them "No", which seems to be a surprise. It shouldn't be. My iPhone 4S is doing just fine, with a little over 12 months left on its contract. I'm happy with it, and it gets most of the software driven features of the new phone on 19th September when iOS 6 rolls out. I've always viewed smartphones as having a two year upgrade cycle. I don't remember an iOS device that has had a really compelling upgrade argument after just a year (except maybe the iPhone 3G); most people wait for their new contract to come up and the two year technology jump is usually significant.

The iPhone 5 has also pretty much got rid of my urge for an iPad 3 to replace my original iPad. As I'd expect the next tablet I get to last 2-3 years, I'm waiting for one with the new Lightning adaptor so my next phone and iPad will be aligned.

Hearing but not Listening

I find it amazing how people can be told about the consequences of an act repeatedly, but seem shocked and upset when they do it anyway and have to face the music. Behaviour I expect from children, not leaders. Isn't human nature wonderful?

Creation Myths?

On the iPad creation myth
Prompted by a genuine question from a friend on whether the iPad is any good for creation, or is really a consumption device, here are my thoughts. As a starting point, the iPad is a great device for consuming media; the web, films, news, TV streaming, books and social media all work extremely well, and you can definitely pass (waste?) many idle hours with your new found friend. The lack of Flash is not a real issue either, as most sites stream H264 video these days, and it’s not something that I've really missed(*).

(*)And you can get around it for video with Skyfire, which converts the streams on the fly to H264.

But is the iPad a device for creation? There is a commonly held myth out there that you cannot create with a tablet, that you need a full computer. Now, I'm writing this post on the iPad, but must confess that I decided to pull out the bluetooth keyboard after I realised that I could be spending some time typing. But isn't that still creation?

How easy it is to use an iPad creatively will depend to some measure with what you want to do with it. It will also depend on how much you want it to meet those needs. I've no doubt that if I had an 11" MacBook Air then my iPad would definitely see a significant reduction in the amount of work with prose and some photography related activities that I do with it. However, I have a 13" aluminium MacBook which is doing just fine, but is nowhere near as portable.

Evidence of Creativity?Rather than circle around debating how many angels can creatively dance on the head of my iPad, perhaps I should tell you what I do with my iPad, and you can judge whether it meets your idea of creativity or not?

I write on my iPad using apps like Drafts, iA Writer and Pages. The first two fill the same niche, the second tends to be used for more formal work like material. Some of the finished product will be used 'as-is' – for example for blog posts – and other material may be tweaked in Word on either my Mac or work PC before it is used. It's fair to say that Pages isn't a favourite, and that I will buy Microsoft Office for iOS if it ever becomes something beyond a rumour.

I've written three gaming scenarios to the point of running at convention and taken one to the first draft of publication on the iPad. I've also experimented with synchronising a more detailed project with Scrivener on the Mac via Dropbox and PlainText, but haven't had the need to do it again.

I produce mind-maps for work and gaming writing using Mindnode, which is probably the best mind-mapping tool that I have ever used, anywhere. The touch interface is a joy to use. I produce flow-charts and diagrams using OmniGraffle, which is expensive, but excellent, and provides a portable Visio style tool.

I proofread and annotate drafts of gaming and work material using iAnnotate, these days in conjunction with the excellent Cosmonaut stylus made by Studio Neat, mainly because it feels like using a highlighter. This is supported with the excellent iOS versions of the Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus for reference.

I sketch, using Paper and Penultimate, and can produce useable vector images with Inkpad. There are other art tools like Adobe Ideas, ArtRage and Brushes which are all excellent, but not really something that I have had cause to do any more than mess around with. If I was talented this way I could see the interface being a joy to use.

I outline, sometimes with Carbonfin Outliner, sometimes with OmniOutliner, depending on my mood. Not something I do too often, but it happens.

I've knocked together presentations with Keynote, and also used it to show PowerPoint slides from work. I've taken meeting minutes with the ever-so-useful ActionNotes, and have moved most of my notes from a Moleskine to DayOne. I dabble with Evernote, but mainly for a capture-system for gaming related material.

I've used Photogene, Touch Up and Snapseed to edit photos before carrying out batch uploads and other changes using Flickr Studio. I've used Skitch to annotate webpages to explain functions to friends and relatives.

If I needed to edit code on my server, I could use Diet Coda, from Panic, which seems subtly powerful. Fortunately, I rarely need to do this. I've used the Wordpress application to update websites that I manage when away from access to a full computer and browser.

Concluding Thoughts
I find the iPad a fantastic tool which supports a number of my workflows really well. Many are the times I've sat staring at the iPad screen, capturing ideas and inspiration and working them through for a while. The work may not finish on the iPad, but a lot of the hard slog is done there.

My laptop and desktop aren't going to go away anytime soon, as they still have unique advantages (higher performance, screen size etc.), but they have a companion with a unique niche. And that niche is getting bigger, as developers continue to push the envelope of what iOS can do as time goes by. The applications that were around when I bought my iPad 1 have nowhere near the sophistication that current generation applications do, and this can only continue to progress with each iteration of iOS and the hardware platform underpinning it.

In conclusion, I think the iPad is a tool for creation as well as consumption. My evidence is above, but it will always be a matter of how it fits your personal workflow.

__
Note: I started this in Drafts, using the on-screen keyboard. I then shunted it to Phraseology (a longer form writing app I'm trying out) and got my Logitech Tablet bluetooth keyboard out when I realised that this could be a longer post (c.1,000 words if you're counting). This will then be sent to Dropbox (or maybe emailed to myself) and I will import it straight into Rapidweaver on my Mac for upload to my personal blog.

Secondly, there are a lot of apps mentioned here. I haven’t bothered linking, as you can just search for them in iTunes…

So Quick!

As we headed out to Wetherby this morning, I noticed that Nathan has done one of those growth spurts that kids have again. Suddenly he's become taller, longer and leaner. I suspect that the hair cut yesterday has brought it all out, but then again it's only four months until he's six years old and he's now in his second year at primary school.

Aidan is also sprouting well, a very different little boy to his big brother. He'll be two in January! He tends to think things through more before he acts, and is incredibly stubborn once his mind is set on something. He doesn't lose heart very quickly either, refusing to be defeated. His coordination is great for a small child, with very accurate throws and kicks (as my nose has felt on several occasions).

Random Holiday Musings

Hope Cove, South Hams, Devon

I always plan to write a blog entry after I've been on holiday, or even during the holiday. Well, this year I've decided to create a blog by capturing random thoughts and observations over the fortnight. There may be some jumps in continuity, and perhaps a lack of coherence, but I guess it's worth a go. The big challenge will be moving it from my iPad to the blog; I really need to look at Tumblr or Wordpress for my website's blog entries.

Fearless

We took Aidan and Nathan to the beach in Inner Hope the second day that we arrived, which was popular. Two things stood out. Firstly, Aidan was absolutely fearless about the sea and not bothered that it was cold. He's a few months older than Nathan was the first time we came here, and its later in the year, but he went quite deep and two duckings from tripping didn't phase him. I can see that we're going to have to watch him.

Secondly, Nathan actually got stuck in digging when we started on a canal. In previous years I've had to do all the labouring, but he was big enough to use a large spade and that made quite a difference. I also found what would be better described as a mini-spade, or perhaps trenching tool. Metal bladed, wooden shafted but still only just bigger than a large child's spade, it promises to make things a little easier.

Truly Wonderful

I've just finished Jo Walton's superb book Among Others. Set in 1979/1980, it tells the tale of a fifteen year-old twin who has suffered a trauma, loves SF and Fantasy with a passion, and just might be able to do magic. By magic, I mean the old Celtic magics of subtle influence rather than Harry Potter or Dungeon & Dragons style *Magic Missiles*.

If you like SF and Fantasy, and can appreciate growing up in that period (which I guess puts you becoming a teenager somewhen between 1975 and 1985, or maybe more), then this book will bring back nostalgia for the first time that you discovered other authors or people who shared your passion for the genre. Brilliant stuff, and possibly my best read of the year so far.

Pennywell Farm

If you're ever looking for something to do with kids in easy reach of the A38, Pennywell Farm is worth considering. Entry isn't extortionate, nor the food prices (but bear in mind my last experience was Olympics London). It's a petting farm, and has a ride on a train, a tractor ride and a number of other things included in the price (the only extras we saw were pony rides and cash for powered go kart slots). There are lots of small slides, trampolines, picnic tables etc. scattered around, and a wide variety of animals and activities.

Aidan also learned a valuable lesson about why you don't stick fingers into hen cages, ignoring mummy and daddy. He still has all ten fingers and thumbs.

Best Laid Plans

Jill and the boys both in bed asleep by 9pm tonight (13/8). Perfect time to sort out the layout work that I'd wanted to resolve this holiday. Unfortunately, whilst the wireless is up, the internet connection is very much down. Best read a book then!


Wool

I was far too late to bed last night as I got hooked completely by Hugh Howey's *Wool* sequence, which has been released as an omnibus edition on Kindle. It's set in a silo where survivors of a forgotten apocalypse live on, a subtly dystopian society and right up my street after some of the writing that I've done for Wordplay recently. Criminals are sentenced to *cleaning*, made to go out into the toxic wasteland and clean the sensor sets. The title of the sequence is multilayered and not as odd as it may seem at first. I wholeheartedly recommend this, but you may find yourself suffering from the 'one more chapter' problem.

The Other Face

Devon is showing its other face today, with constant rain. Admittedly, it's warm rain, but the beach is out unless we break out the tent and the wetsuits. Jill and Nathan have popped out to Salcombe to look for a present and also do a recce on the swimming pool. Aidan and I just had fun.

Dungeon World

Enjoyed reading the pre-release (and pre-proofing) copy of Dungeon World which I received courtesy of backing the Kickstarter campaign. Loved what I read, but ended up proofing it as it was a PDF and on my iPad. Send it off to the authors, who were happy for the feedback. I'm really looking forward to this being released as it really catches the essence of old school D&D with a modern twist, in a far less crunchy way than Burning Wheel and the more direct D&D derivatives.

Proofing tools

Speaking of proofing, iAnnotate from Branchfire, combined with a Cosmonaut Stylus from Studio Neat, is a great way to proof PDFs on the iPad. The stylus feels like a highlighter and is very accurate, and iAnnotate handles basic PDF annotation really well. I recommend both.

On the Trains

We had our third visit to the South Devon Railway this week, and our second to the Rare Breeds Farm at Totnes (which is at the far end of the line from the start at Buckfastleigh). Both the boys enjoyed this, and Aidan started to show a very independent streak, wanting to walk and go and explore things himself. He was fascinated by ducks, saying "Oh look, duck!" and chasing one of the flocks around their enclosure giggling and going "qwak qwak" at them. He liked the train as well, maybe not quite as much as his brother.

The Farm also has a collection of rescued owls, which fascinated Nathan and gave me flashbacks to the owlet that fell the ground in the garden of the cottage that I stayed at in Devon when I was a child. Naturally, we called him "Plop" after the story The Owl that was Afraid of the Dark.

Tucker's Maltings

Rain was forecast again today, so we looked for another expedition. We wanted somewhere we could be under cover, so settled upon a visit to a working Maltings in Newton Abbot. Of course, when we arrived, the sun came out and was cracking the flags. The site was over a hundred years old, and catered really well for visitors, even 5 year olds like Nathan.

It was very much the industrial process of a century ago, still viable and working. And we got to sample the local brew at the end, which was nice. Nathan was most disappointed that he didn't get beer too! I even managed to put my safety professional head to one side during the visit, which was well organised and the hour passed very quickly. Aidan was less fascinated, but loved the museum at the end where he could run around and touch things.

Afterwards, we had a picnic in the park opposite - not a particularly attractive park, but fresh air and some much needed food to keep the boys quiet.



Are we nearly there yet?

The picnic didn't keep them quiet. Every car journey has been somewhat stressful, ranging from Nathan's question time ("What is there bad like black holes?", "What will happen when the sun dies?", "Mummy, is God dead?", and more) through to manic playing, giggles and squabbles on the back seat. That's the parenting experience, I guess. It's due to turn back to sunny tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to get them to burn off some energy on the beach!


My Kind of Traitor

I've started the latest John le Carré novel Our Kind of Traitor, which is deliciously sharp so far, continuing the return to form he has had since Absolute Friends. Something to thank the politics of George W Bush for, I guess, as he fired up le Carré's passion and anger again.

The only dark side I can see came from reading the bio, which made me realise the the author is now 80 and wonder how many more great novels are left for him to write. Many, I hope.

Updated - finished now, and I can recommend it. In common with most of le Carré's work, please don't ready if you expect a happy, Disney-fairy-tale ending.

Grand Day Out

Not quite all day, but most of the afternoon was spent on the beach at Inner Hope, building sandcastles, engineering the surface water outflow route on the sand to create moats and lakes, jumping waves and exploring rock pools. Back home with two exhausted boys, sun-kissed and happy. An incredibly cheap day too, compared to those when it rains!

It was Aidan's first proper day on a beach when he really knew what he was doing. He dug holes, threw sand, paddled in the pools and sea and ran around very excited. He was shattered at bed time!

Missing Opportunities

I think that major publishers don't get digital, and some small press publishers don't see the allure of print. Two examples from this evening follow:

1) Caught up with the Saturday edition of the Guardian, which has an interview with one of my favourite authors (from a young age), Alan Garner. Apparently, he has a new book coming out - always a great thing - called Boneland, which is an adult aimed sequel to his superb Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Moon of Gomrath. Those books have a special place in my heart as they lit up the Cheshire countryside of my youth, and made Alderley Edge an even more special place for me.

So, I go onto Amazon and pre-order the Kindle edition for release on 30 August. All excited, and knowing my Garner books are currently in storage while the extension goes on, I decide to buy Kindle versions of the first two books. These aren't available, and neither are any others in Garner's back catalogue. The publisher has just failed to make two or more novel sales that duplicate paper copies I already have. Isn't it foreseeable that people may want to buy the first two books electronically as well?!

I had a similar experience with M. John Harrison's Empty Space, the third and concluding book in his Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy). Third book is out electronically, but the first two? Again, this would have been duplicate sales for the publishers.

[Update 9/9/2012 - the second book in Harrison’s trilogy, Nova Swing, is now due out on Kindle at the end of September. Hopefully the first will follow.]

2) Smaller press. I'm reading Graham Walmsley's excellent Stealing Cthulhu, an inspiring revisitation of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. Half-way through, I think "it'd be nice to get a copy of Ken Hite's excellent Tour de Lovecraft, which summarises and critiques the original HPL texts. Head to RPGNow, and discover there's no print edition (to complement the PDF I have) available via the Lightning Source POD link. Likewise, nothing on the publisher's site as it is now out of print. Disappointing, as it would be a nice compliment to Walmsley's book. I can get it Kindle… The thing is, it was produced in an age when not having the POD version is completely crazy.

Beach

Great day on the beach yesterday with oodles of sand engineering creating a plethora of castles, lakes and canals. Also had fun with Nathan 'wave jumping'; I hold his hand, he jumps, often with a helping hand from me, sometimes with waves bigger than his head. He gets very excited by this. I did have to take him back in though when he started shivering, no matter his denials that he was okay! He'd tried a body board the day before, even hough he was obviously scared by the idea, and loved it.

Aidan excelled himself by falling asleep, mid-lunch, on top of Jill for an hour and a half's nap!

Rain, rain come again

Loading the car to go was a somewhat damp experience as the heavens opened for the hour and a half that I was packing. As usual, we seem to have more for the return journey than the way here. Anyway, we're away and I'm writing this at the Beachcomber Café at Hope Cove (linked to the Hope and Anchor) where we are spoiling ourselves with a full English before we embark on the seven hour drive(*).

(*) Actually 10 hour in the end due to weather and traffic

Nathan's best bits

Nathan tells me that he "liked the beach because it was really nice and there was lots of shells and there was big waves that you could jump in. Sometimes I needed Daddy if the waves were too big. I liked it a lot because it was the best thing in the world".

A success, I think!

Jill's best bits

Jill's answer to the what was your best bit of the holiday was "The beach, Overbecks and the South Devon Railway, especially the salad at the Rare Breeds Farm".

Aidan's best bits

The beach, and sleeping in a grown up bed.

31 August 2012

Temples of Science and Evolution

Temple of Evolution: Natural History Museum

One of the great things about London for the visitor - and I guess for the locals - is the wide and excellent variety of Museums and places to visit. As this was Nathan's first trip to the Big Smoke, we decided to take him to two of the biggest; the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.

Both have the things that will interest a five year-old boy *and* his parents, but overall our experience was that the Science Museum wins for overall excitement. Space rocket, lunar landers, cars, planes, bubbles, old technology, the Red Arrows and more won the heart of Nathan over the Dinosaurs, Creep Crawlies and Amphibians. Admittedly, he loved it all, but the Science Museum was the clear winner in the running from display-to-display and actually listening to videos and audio material stake. I also lost Jill & Nathan for thirty minutes after they got detoured into the Launchpad activity area when they had supposedly nipped quickly to the toilets!

The Natural History Museum (NHM hereafter) was also a bit more blatant in its commercial operations, with a wincingly expensive café and in-your-face promotion of dinosaur toys as part of the displays (cleverly wrapped up as 'dinosaurs in modern culture') which just happened to available immediately opposite the gallery exit. The Science Museum wasn't quite as blatant, although a can of soft drink was still £1.80 against the £2.00 in the NHM.

I went into an adult aimed temporary exhibit in both Museums; at the NHM it was 'Scott's Last Expedition', which cost £9 to go into. This was excellent, recounting the last, fatal, journey of Captain RF Scott and his men as they arrived second to Amundsen at the South Pole. There were a good variety of artifacts and interesting displays, giving a good understanding of the logistical and scientific achievements of the expedition. One thing that was apparent was the different focus applied by Amundsen and Scott. Amundsen was completely focussed on achieving the pole, whereas Scott had a huge scientific agenda as well. It's particularly painful when you realise just how close Scott's party got to the supplies and safety of 'One Ton' camp. I really enjoyed the Exhibition and would recommend it if you can get to London before it ends at the start of September.

Temple of Science: The Science Museum

In the Science Museum, I visited 'Codebreaker', an exhibition on the life and influence of Alan Turing, WW2 cryptographer, computer pioneer and philosopher. Free to enter, there was less to see than "Scott's Last Exhibition", but it was interesting material. I've read a fair amount on the Engima codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park, so that was a familiar story, but the early computing and morphology work was new to me. There was also a classic engineering example, with a section of the failed Comet airliner displayed. Apparently, the Pilot ACE computer designed by Turing was key in carrying out the calculations that demonstrated that the cause was fatigue cracking of the square windows. Again, and especially at the price, worth a visit.

All in all, we had great days both times we visited and it is fair to say that we could easily have spent all-day at both venues rather than the four-to-six hours that we were there at each.

Interestingly, Nathan actually gives the NHM '3 thumbs up' and the Science Museum '2 thumbs up' on the grounds that he felt the NHM had more stuff (but we only did two floors at the Science Museum). However, for all the NHM is the winner in the questions afterwards, the Science Museum was definitely the one that fascinated him most on the day. Intriguing.

Thank you, Danny Boyle

Olympics - our view of the games when we went down

The 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony was an act of genius that restored the chance to be proud of this countries' heritage, a chance that was cruelly ripped from us when the celebrations of winning the games were cut short by the atrocities of 7/7 (*)

The opening ceremony brought back all those emotions of pride in our heritage, of the way that the UK has influenced and led the world from the industrial revolution, to universal health-care and the birth of the world wide web and more.

Yes, there were moments of irreverent humour as well as the pomp and circumstance, but that just captures the national psyche accurately.

Initial viewing figures (which don't include iPlayer and streaming usually) suggest 26.9 million watched the opening ceremony in the UK. As it was alleged to have cost £27 million, that's the best pound I've spent in a long time! A hat tip to one of the government ministers I usually excoriate, Jeremy Hunt, for the vision to increase the budget even when the outcome may not have played best with some of his colleagues.

(*) If reports are true, NBC cut the 7/7 memorial in the US showing of the opening ceremony. If so, they have nothing but my contempt. Imagine if the UK had done the same about 9/11 and the pain that America feels about that atrocity?

Counterpoint
A fortnight later, the closing ceremony was a classic example of over-promising and under-delivering. Too many suggestions of the greats of British rock and pop being involved were hinted and suggested into the media and not delivered upon. For me, it only came to life with Eric Idle's performance of 'Always look on the bright side of life' - which was genius - and had a few more high points that followed; the Royal Ballet performance, Rio, and 'The Who' at the end.

Queen were great right up to the point that Jessie J arrived, with Brian May reminding us why he is the best astronomer playing guitar in the world. There's nothing wrong with Jessie J as such, it just felt that her performance style in Freddie Mercury's place trampled over everything that Queen had been (**). In fact, Jessie J had delivered a performance earlier which – either accidentally or deliberately – skewered the ethos of the Olympic Movement's organisers: "It's all about the Money". In saying this, I talk of the International Olympic Committee whose corruption has become a matter of legend. I know that the song was a big hit, so I'm not certain if it was a sly dig, or just coincidence! Likewise, the Indian dancing in Eric Idle's performance makes me wonder if it had been added after the PM's recent contemptuous remarks.

Anyway, I'm certain that the closing ceremony - rather than being the "after party to end all after-parties" - is an event that is destined to be forgotten, unlike the opening ceremony. I have the soundtrack of the latter and love it, but haven't the slightest intent of buying the latter!

(**)Arguably something that the rest of the band members have been doing for years.

Final thoughts
The participants in the Olympics have my utmost respect, except for those that tried gaming results or doping to win. Their dedication and effort made the games.

Against all predictions, the LOCOG delivered a superb games for the athletes and the spectators. It felt incredibly welcoming and extremely well organised. It helped me feel proud to be British, despite our political classes.

The Armed Forces also deserve respect for the way they stepped up and covered for the ineptness of G4S, who look like they're back to the same reputation that they had when they were plain old 'Group 4'. It was great to see so many of our uniformed services making sure that the nation looked great and not feeling intimidating at all. I still remember us saying hello to two police-officers that had been seconded from West Yorkshire to find that one of them polices Wetherby, showing how the whole nation has pulled together to deliver this!

So now the Para-Olympic Games are approaching, which I hope will be at least as good.

Respect
Danny Boyle set the scene for the Olympics and ignited the nation's passion and pride for the games and itself. He - and Team GB - gave us reasons for hope and patriotism, and touched more of the heart of this this nation than Cameron, Clegg, and Miliband can ever hope to achieve.

I'll stop gushing now.