Urban Nightmare – the megagame
So we're about to start playing the megagame Urban Nightmare, which is a political crisis management game of a zombie outbreak in Romero City. I'm playing the Deputy Chief of the Emergency Services (which is a combined paramedic and firefighter service). We've got 20 fire appliances and 8 emergency ambulances to service the city. Overnight we've had four emergency calls for paramedics at Sin Street, Cass Tech High School, Elmwood Park & the Water-works Park. All four incidents have had their casualties taken to City General Hospital (which is the closest). Related articles Urban Nightmare - the megagame 'The Price of Victory'- Somme Megagame, Royal Armouries, Leeds. Hack Days and Megagames - Time for a "Fantasy Tax Hack"?
Defeat Into Victory
Image via Wikipedia A friend sent me a copy of Field Marshal Bill Slim's Defeat Into Victory. It has always been on my list of books I'd like to read, but somehow I'd never quite got round to acquiring a copy. The version I have is a reading copy of the original edition, with fold out maps all through it. The reading style is very engaging and easy to read, especially if you have the space to fold out the map at the end of the chapter so that you can follow all the places when they appear in the narrative. It was the first time I'd read about the ebb and flow of the war in Burma (even though my grandfather drove a DUKW out there). So I found it very interesting, the nature of warfare was hugely different that both Europe and North Africa (and I suspect even…
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Folklore of Discworld
This is the first of the 40 books I got for my birthday that I have read. While I'm not committing to reviewing them all, I have set myself an internal target to read them all before my next birthday. I'm a fan of both Terry Pratchett and folklore. I definitely learnt some things, but also knew quite a lot of it already, which perhaps reflects the four star rating rather than the five one might otherwise expect given my stated interests. You don't need to have read all the discworld novels to get this book, but you do need to be a discworld reader or a large chunk of it will be lost on you. This book is a reference list that explains how earth's folklore (primarily British, but not exclusively so) has influenced the stories, and it comes…
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Nineteen Years in Public Service
Nineteen years ago I started work, at Her Majesty's pleasure according to my job offer letter, as an Executive Officer with the Department of the Environment. I was a graduate entrant on the DOE's Management Development Programme and was paid an annual salary of £12,200, including London Weighting. That was quite good money at the time, the average graduate starting salary was £10,000 and in today's terms it would be about double that (using the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to update it). The expectations that I had were of relatively rapid promotion to Higher Executive Officer (HEO) after about 3 years and then skipping past Senior Executive Officer (SEO) straight to Grade 7 in about five years after getting to HEO. I also got told that I would have compulsory retirement at the age of 60 and that I would…
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Megagame: Invasion from Mars – the end
Dateline General Buck's HQ, BRADLEY It's all over bar the talking. Army Group West is now all back on the East Continent. With due pomp and ceremony (we got a band in) the Mech Brigade left by sea and then my HQ flew out. I was the last member of the DRC forces to leave the East Continent having handed over FAREAST to the MAFC Marines I got on the last flyer out and flew back to BRADLEY. Troops evacuated from the West Continent have been deployed into our cities in the western part of the East Continent. If the negotiations break down then all forces have been withdrawn to defend the homeland, and most of the losses have been made good using the Repair and Maintenance Points (RMP). --- As a conclusion, the DRC are all very surprised at…