Five Pounds for a Week – Half Way Point

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This week I am trying to live on five pounds for a week (monday to friday) for food.  You can learn about this by going to my previous post.  We are now at the half way point so what am I thinking.  Well mainly I am thinking…hungry, hungry.

I have managed to stick to the budget but I do have some thoughts about this which you should be able to hear over my rumbling tummy!

46p for a week's cereal choice

  • Finding and choosing food takes quite a while.  Instead of a bank note and ‘give me that please’ it is a matter of scanning the shelves looking for the tightest price you can.  This often means really bad value as the only packs I can afford are the smallest ones so I can buy something but the amount I get is tiny compared to what  could get if I had more money for the same item such as Pasta.
  • Variety.  I am already bored of a meat free diet of mainly bread and pasta.
  • Vices.  I do not smoke or drink much alcohol which is great since I can afford neither.  The lack of caffine is getting to me too.
  • Size Matters.  I am not a small fellow, at about six foot and two eighty pounds in weight it needs more fuel for my engine!
  • Reduced Rack.  Major supermarkets reduce the cost of food in the late afternoon and evenings and you can get some really good deals with items dated that day for consumption being some 80-90% off their normal prices.  I just have to time it correctly and get in first!
  • Work and Temper.  I am starting to feel a bit cold while sitting at the computer and I have a lot less desire for complex tasks than normal plus my mood is not great as I am constantly hungry.
  • Avoid the urge to eat once a day.  Spread the food, do not eat it all at once.  Made that mistake!

Jamming for 35p. Taste's fine!

More on Friday…roll on the weekend!  🙂

GBS

Blogger and Wargaming

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Over the last week or so I have watched with  interest some messages posted on The Notables Yahoo Group about why the majority of the wargames I have created or maintain do not have ‘a big presence on the net’.  You might think this strange what with this blog along with the official company websites and Barking Irons Online plus Orcs in the Webbe and other websites all having our material but that is not what the posting was really about.  To me the posting which kicked off this discussion (and confirmed by those who replied to it) was about Blogger.

You see the vast majority of wargamers who are online in their own right use Blogger, a simple and free tool provided by Google, to get their hobby across to the world.  Blogger is a community unto itself in that it links up among its own blogs and its users.  In fact in order to post on blogs like Tony Harwood’s I had to create a ‘Blogger ID’ even though I do not have a blogger blog.  So if you are on Blogger and you search for the wargame products I produce then you will not see them as none of the current online presences we have are part of Blogger.  Makes sense eh!

I had been thinking of putting up my own wargaming experiences, my collection, my terrain and my methods in the form of photos and perhaps video too and this is decided me.  I will do it and I will use Blogger as the platform for it. Separate to my online personal presence here.  When its done you will see all you want to see of my wargaming including the play testing and concept gaming for new games and scenarios.  This will take some time as I am as always ruddy busy with many things but more on this when I have it.

GBS

Eurovision 2012 – My Prediction

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It is that time again that makes me realise another year has passed like lightening (very much like the annual London Salute wargame show does), Eurovision is  to be held this Saturday!

For those who do not live in Europe or if you do those of you who live under a rock and manage to miss this event each spring Eurovision is a talent show of massive proportions where a musical act from every nation in ‘Europe’ (the definition is rather loose with Russia and Israel taking part for example) takes part and then all the nations vote for a winner.  The semi finals are underway now to whittle down the acts to the final group that will sing live in Baku 2012 this weekend.

I LOVE Eurovision and watch it every year but its not for the music.  It is for the little party I have in the house and for guessing the winner and for laughing out loud at some of the frankly sublime and crazy acts from every corner of the continent and beyond.  I have done this since the mid nineteen nineties and each year I sit up late for the telecast votes to come in.  This time we in the UK are represented by musical legend and super heavy weight Engelbert Humperdink.  You can see our entry from him below.

So my prediction for this year?  Good fun, good laughs, a lot of not so good tunes and the winner…well unless there is a major upset it will be yet another Eastern European state courtesy of the ‘perhaps we should all block vote for each other’ mantra.  Chances of it being the UK or any Western European nation…slim indeed.

GBS

WIP – USE ME Starter Pack – Outpost 32

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“Craft Delta Tango 3 please identify yourself. I repeat this is Outpost 32 controller traffic please identify so that we can direct you to landing pad Alpha for customs inspection.”

Lorn Abbott had attempted contact with the incoming star craft for more than ten minutes and it was becoming clear that who or whatever was on the ship was not in a talkative mood. Lorn tried again and then waited as the broad spec beam gave him nothing but empty signal in return. He turned to the assistant controller.

“Bernat I think we are going to have trouble. That ship is close enough now for me to get a visual lock. Its a discus and that means it’ ain’t Terran or even an allied species. Typical luck for us isn’t it I mean the 304th Legion only left three standards ago and all we got here is a detachment and the citizen militia.”

Lorn tried once more since Bernat offered nothing but a grunt by way of a reply. This was pointless. He knew the craft could hear him and its vector meant the Outpost could be its only destination. Who were these creatures?  The Central Processor had been running designations for three hours searching its memory for a match to the ship or its markings. Typically the search only took moments once a vessel was in visual range but this alien ship was rare indeed.

The Central Processor toned that its search had returned a positive result and Lorn sighed as Bernat failed to shift his bulk from the console seat even though he was right in front of the CP station. Reaching over Lorn tapped his code into the screen and the information flashed up. Lorn felt sick to the pit of his stomach and after a moment Bernat actually retched.

Lorn picked up the internal com channel and contacted all of the armed Humans and Aliens in the Outpost.

“Alert One. Top Priority! We will have hostile visitors in nine hours time. Confirmation of Zeta Reculians, Greys. Armed and Dangerous. Known slavers and abductors. All outpost security and militia personnel report to command for briefing.”

Lorn Abbott had never held a weapon in his life but the Greys would take him anyway….why did they do this….why?

Work is in progress on the first USE ME Starter Pack titled ‘UMS01 Danger on Outpost 32‘.  As outlined already on the blog here this starter pack will contain all book, miniatures, bases, dice and inserts to play three linked unique scenarios either with another player or on your own solo play.  You can read the fiction introduction above.

This starter pack is the first of four planned for the 15mm science fiction generic setting and they are quite quick to put together as USE ME is a simple set of rules and each scenario needs to be play tested only twice and once more with solo rules added.

I hope to have more to tell you at the end of the week!

GBS

Live for a Week on Five Pounds

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All the Money I have for Five Days Food

I was quite moved by the newspaper article that I outlined last week here.   So to that end I decided on Sunday that I would try and live on a pound a day for food for one week (that is Monday to Friday).  It will only be me, not my wife and children and it will not include petrol or other payments (otherwise I will not be able to get to work and I will be the ‘bad guy’ for making the kids live on 25p each a day!).  I will post a couple of times to let you all know how its going.

At the moment  I am about to head out to the super market to see if I can spend my remaining day’s budget on some reduced food…waste not want not!

GBS

Irregular Magazine

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Irregular Magazine Issue 12

Earlier this week I noticed a web address on a customer’s invoice from 15mm.co.uk.  That web address was for Irregular Magazine a free quarterly ezine dedicated to all aspects of the wargaming hobby.  So I decided to head on over and have a look at the most recent issue which is number twelve.

Each issue is around the forty four page mark in length and has a theme.  The theme of issue twelve is ‘Heroes and Villains’ and articles within it include fiction, artwork, comics, painting tutorials, reviews and much more all geared towards the mentioned theme.  It was a good read and it was made all the better by being free and being sent direct to my computer by a simple button click.  It took me about an hour to read it through and the layout was very clear and easy to follow.  My favourite part of the magazine was ‘Alaric and the Goths’ by Jason Hubbard (who is also editor of the issue).

I had not been aware of this publication and when time allows I will be browsing the back issues which are all offered online and for free.

Go along and have a look.  I always have a soft spot for the plucky provider and Irregular Magazine is all that is best about wargaming.  It’s got soul.

GBS

p.s. I have linked to the magazine in my blog roll so you can use that link too!

WIP – Work in Progress to begin here on the blog

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It has become apparent to me and to some of those I work with that I just cannot keep going on trying to please every wargamer that is a customer of Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk.  By that I mean that for the last eight odd years I have written more than half a million words in free scenarios and material as well as near a million in published email help and printed / ebooks which are now rule sets for both brands.  This is a good output and I greatly enjoyed it, but a lot of it was in my own time (for the free stuff and for the Notables Yahoo Group ) and I just can’t keep doing it.  I am losing my mind! 🙂

Now, I am not quitting or even giving up but I am beginning a new way of working and that is ‘Work in Progress’ or WIP.  This means I will have no more than three projects under way at any one time.  Therefore my output will be less but it will still be high.  I have added a WIP category to the blog and also a WIP tag too so that when I post about a project you will be able to follow it back by these aids.

I feel a need to apologise which I have been told by everyone here is mad since I have made a lot of people happy and I now have many game ranges to look after not just a few.  So I am a little sorry if that makes sense…I will keep on doing my best for all you Flintloque players, fans of the Ion Age, USE ME punters, HOF users and the rest.

As for what the first WIP projects are…well keep on reading they will come soon enough.

GBS

Going Hungry in 21st century Scotland

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Front Page of the Ayrshire Post this week

I do my bit to support the local economy here in South Ayrshire, Scotland.  Part of this is to buy a copy of the Ayrshire Post almost every week even though it is more than half made up of adverts and most of the news in it is…well…rather boring.  But this week the front page told me something interesting, you can see it above, about a subject I had thought would not make much of an impact where I live.  It is true that Girvan is counted as one of the poorer parts of the county (but when your county include the very affulent town of Ayr and with in Doonfoot and Alloway…land of Robert Burns, this is no surprise) but I really had not realised that Children would go hungry here.

While the article concerns another part of the country it does make clear that Girvan will be included in ‘Food Bank’ schemes that are being rolled out.  It also makes it clear that it is not only ‘people of chaotic lifestyles’ (we know what that means) but normal working families who are suffering.  It seems that even with the availability of what I would count as cheap but decent food in supermarkets (many large items for less then one pound) which would allow one to live for a week for not much money it is not enough.  I do not want to go into the reason for this but it seems perhaps unemployment and misuse of funds in budgeting results in those people having this problem.

I have three children and I will admit that a large and ever larger portion of my income goes on food for them and for myself and my good lady.  I do not smoke or drink much in the way of alcohol, nor do a I gamble (how boring am I!) and aside from spending money on the bills, the car and on wargaming (Shussh!  Got to have my latest little metal men!) I do not expend money on many other things.   Even so I do find it at times a stretch to keep the little ones in top class caviar and champaign.  So perhaps without an iron rule on the purse strings it is easy to slip.

This makes me think.  Would I be able to live (just me, I will not inflict my schemes on the family!) on just one pound a day for a week for food?  The amount many claim is the minimum per person in the UK.  I will give this some thought.

GBS

‘Gonna Park whur I want’

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The view from my windscreen

Life is hectic just now but more posts are coming soon I promise.  So tonight just a little thing that I witnessed this week through the windscreen of my trusty auto mobile.   I have not been driving for long, only about six months, so I am still fairly new to the great art of parking.  I was sitting in this street in Girvan with my good lady when I saw this and just had to take a picture.   We were discussing my parking in the street mere moments earlier.  I was about six inches further out than I should have been so  I apologised and was about to correct it when…

This car sauntered down the road, crossed over, mounted the kerb, then stopped.  The driver got out leaving it with two wheels on the pavement, wheels turned out into traffic and of course on double yellow lines.

I will leave the social commentary aside apart from saying that it was not a teenage male driver, note the nearness of the entrance to the hall where the driver went and finally…why am I moaning about a measly six inches when classy parking like this is the goal for all good drivers!  🙂

GBS

The Awards of Youth

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Awards for May 2012

Every couple of months the local primary school which my children attend gives prizes out at an assembly in front of the entire school.  Last week it was the turn of the younger classes in which ‘The Thinker’ and ‘The Poet’ are members.  Both won prizes which you can see above.  These prizes are based on the accumulation of ‘stars’.  Stars can be earned for top marks in class, full attendance, prompt homework and so on.  The note book is a good prize achieved, by my estimate, about 40% of a class while the tin star is a very good prize with only 20% of a class getting one.  The paper behind them is a note from a teacher affirming ‘The Poet’ as the top lad in his class.

I am very proud of the two of them.  Solid little lads.  Five Pounds each for making the grade.  Dad 🙂

GBS