Bill Bailey - Live at Cardiff CIA

November 25th, Sunday evening.
I went, with my wife Emily, and our friends, Lucy and Antony to see Bill Bailey live on stage in Cardiff.

The event was sold out, and the queues started early.

We decided not to queue, and go to a nearby pub for a drink. Then wait for the lines to clear and go inside. I booked a CD takeaway, which was a double CD recording of that evenings performance, which you could collect at the end of the show.

The arena was filling up nicely and we only noticed a few empty seats.


The lights came down and I popped out to get Emily some candyfloss.

The show started.

It was a great show, with some very good effects. The giant screens were also used for some cool visual jokes, which dont work so well on the Audio CD version of the show, but still, we have the memories of it to visualize as we listen.
If you have not seen him live, do so, he is excellent. If not, catch him on DVD in Black Books or his live shows.

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Hannibal Arrives in Wales

It has been a long journey, but finally Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage has arrived. I originally made the pre-order back in March, when Valley Games announced they were re-printing this much sought after game. Valley games set up a pre-order 750, which means that if they got 750 pre-orders they would then print the game. in less than 48 hours they had received over 1400 orders.

They announced printing in April, for scheduled release in July.
Payments were taken, then a few days later I had a request for sales tax. I thought this odd, as we don't have sales tax in the U.K. Just VAT. I checked with Kevin at Valley Games, they had mistakenly had my address listed in Canada, not Britain. I got this corrected and all now seemed to be going smoothly.

The release date was pushed back to September, and then again into October. On October the 5th (1 day after the announcement of a postal strike in the U.K) the games were shipped to the European customers. I waited.

Days past, nothing arrived. Days became weeks, nothing. The Forums on Boardgamegeek were rife with people receiving thier games, and many who had not. There seemed to be no pattern, people in Germany posted that they had arrived, Norway, Belgium. Finally UK residents, who received thiers via DHL, surely it wouldnt be long now.

November arrives and still nothing has been delivered. Essen had been and gone, and Finnally Valley Games announce some problems with the dispatch. I re-sent my details as requested and wait.

Ten days later on 21st November, a package arrived! Hannibal had finally crossed Europe, the English Channel, down the M4 and across the Severn Bridge.

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