back of a spreadsheet; back of the net

I went to see Make It Happen at the Fesitval theatre. A satire of the Royal Bank of Scotland during the Goodwin years. Written by James Graham, directed by Andrew Panton

It was fine. I enjoyed it. It's a good play. 

I liked the script. It was at it's best when it reminded the audience, many of whom would have first hand experience RBS at the time, that they were complicit in the behaviour of the banking sector. They voted for it, they invested in it, they banked with it and they worked in it.  Good performances from the leads, Brian Cox (stage, not space) as Adam Smith  and Sandy Grierson as Fred Goodwin. Grierson in particular was very good. Cox perhaps not quite the master of his lines yet. The supporting cast also very good, in particular the little cluster of Goodwin's aides.

Things I would do differently. The singing, the lighting, the pacing. 

There's a lot of singing in the show. Lots of early 2000's indie pop arranged for a choir.  The singing, as singing is good. I enjoyed the singing. Singing whilst moving and acting is difficult. I think the producting needs less singing. The singing is in the style of a social rock choir. The singing is arranged for a competent choir who are also moving and acting. It's all a bit similar. It's also being used I think to screen scene changes. However, the play is staged on a multi-level open stage, with minimal set. The cast is ensemble. Specific characters emerge from the crowd in each scene with a change of a jacket. There's no need for a protracted scene change screened by singing. 

It would perhaps have been more narratively effective for the emergance of the named characters from the crowd to be more noticable to the audience. We are all after all complicit in RBS.

I struggled with the lighting. Perhaps if I had gone to work for RBS instead of trying to work for Gordon Brown I'd have been able to afford seats closer to the stage but from row W of the Festival theatre the moody dark lighting was too dark. 

Specifically, it was difficult to make out some of the space work and in particular what I think was Grierson's business with a chainsaw cutting down a tree. The tree was important. Symbolic. It could have been better light.

The pacing. The play is 2:40 with an interval. I'd cut five pages of the script, shorten each song by 45 seconds, cut three songs and interval and try and get the thing delivered in 2 hours. 

Quibbles aside. it's very good. Go and enjoy it.

https://www.eif.co.uk/events/make-it-happen

As part of my stop being miserable and start being alive again programme I am taking up in earnest a number of hobbies.

I have joined a board games club that meets on a Friday, a table top role playing club that meets on Wednesday and next week I have an introductory session to a table top wargaming club. This all is in part spurred on by finding my old Warhammer kit spread across the bedroom floor after the burglary and being inspired to try and get it back on the table. (Improv and acting to follow.)

So over the week I spent some time assessing how much of my Games Workshop Bretonnian army was damaged (very little), how much stuff I thought I had was missing (a couple of pieces but they could easily be in a box I've not looked in yet), what sort of stuff I had that could go on the table (painted, based etc - enough for one functional but small army). That job done I needed to find a better way of storing them and put them on some movement trays.

The answer turns out to be magnets and the wonder of Amazon's business model.

Buy small magnets, glue these to the bottom of your models. Buy ferrous-rubber sheeting. Buy self-adhesive velcro tape. Buy Really Useful Storage Boxes. Spend Saturday morning listening to classic Just a Minute whilst Your Lovely Wife and Your Energetic Son are out shopping and playing golf respectively sticking them all together. Then spend some time on Sunday making magnetised movement trays out of  the cardboard that your Amazon deliveries came in, self-adhesive A4 sticky labels and cut-to-fit rubberised magnetic sheeting.

So that's the core of a Bretonnian army ready to go.

Due to changes in the rule-set I need to add in some additional models and I miss my Green Knight. The Green Knight is such a wild, mad character, in both narrative and play terms that I insist on replacing him and I need some more flag-carriers and trumpeteers and junior officers. But that can wait until after I've tried out at the club. I will avoid buying anything from your actual Games Workshop because I try not to support the business model of "change rules to force lonely teenagers to buy new models."

In terms of changes to business models that make this easier, Amazon, Amazon-style delivery,  3d printing, YouTube and all mediate by the internet.

It's now easier and cheaper to find new ideas, new suppliers, new things and have them get to your house.

When I first took up this hobby it was very difficult to buy models that were not bought in a Games Workshop shop and made by Games Workshop. Games Workshop would not sell you alternative models (and in fact ban unofficial proxies from their shops and sanctioned tournaments). They also mediated / gatekept participation in the hobby. If you didn't already have a group of friends to play with you could only easily find them with the help of Games Workshop. Knowing how to store models using magnets was difficult to find out. Perhaps Games Workshop would rather sell you £200 worth of foam-filled boxes than £30 worth of magnets and velco and therefore didn't write articles about it in their official magazine. Perhaps not, coincedence or magic, you decide. If you knew the technique finding the kit was tricky. Who has 200 5mm by 2mm magnets? Where can I get ferrous-rubber sheets? Which part of my city is the place to look for people who know who to put those together.

Turns out the internet has you covered. Mostly Amazon. Amazon can afford to stock all of the things I need and ship them to me. 3d printing allows  model designers using 3d print software to dis-aggregate themselves from physical 3d printing producers. 3d printing itself is perfect for high-value, low-volume small batch production. YouTube and Google will tell me how to make better storage and which producers of alternative models are good. I don't have to bodge together a foam-filled box in order to not have to buy one for £200. I know have instructions step-by-step on how to make a better alternative and can buy all the materials and have them arrive next day at my door.

So I've had all the storage I need delivered to  my door. Assuming that I enjoy Thursday as much I hope to I'll then have models for the Green Knight, the Lady of the Lake, some heroic knights, some on flying horses, and some pikemen delivered to my door. That should complete my Bretonnian army for the time being. Then to make and paint High Elves and Skaven which are still  mint in the box.  The long winter nights will be filled with joy (and from MLW and MES, baffled incomprehension.)

Six weeks in to my on-going change of diet to the 5:2 intermittent fasting pattern and the results are pretty good so far.

Weight is down about 3.3kgs, target was to be down 2.7kgs - so a little ahead of schedule. 14% of weight loss target in 10% of the time. My expectation is that I'll be ahead of plan early in the process when there is more weight using calories and sticking with the food plan is easier. So I'd say the outcome so far is on the good side of expected. Six weeks is probably long enough to see some consistency in the results but also still not long enough that some of the noise in the measuring (inconsistent clothing, drinking or not drinking a pint of water etc) are still showing up in the trend.

Waist measurement is down in line with plan but had a steep drop in the early weeks and is pretty static at the moment. I'm less fussed about this measure as I know the accuracy of the measurement if poor. I think this is one to take a longer term view on. At some point the measuring error will drop out.

Diet adherence has been mostly good. I've been pretty consistent but not perfect about making sure I have both breakfast and lunch on my fasting days so I'm not putting my evening meal under pressure. I'm not being very strict about the calorie content of the evening meal. It's more important that it is both significantly fewer calories than normal and that I'm content eating it for a year than I stick to the exact gram by gram, calorie by calorie regime. I have a big bowl of salad for dinner. So long as I am not making myself a big bowl of potato salad or whacking in great lumps of feta cheese I'll be consuming about the right number of calories to have the effect I'm after.

I'll check in again in another 6 or 8 weeks by which point I'll have added the Man vs Fat Rugby to the mix. Some extra exercise and some weight loss coaching. That ought to keep the momentum up.